THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES MAN AND BEAST IN EASTERN ETHIOPIA MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO MAN AND BEAST IN • EASTERN ETHIOPIA From Observations made in British East Africa, Uganda, and the Sudan BY J. BLAND-SUTTON, F.R.C.S.ENG. With Two Hundred and Four Engravings on Wood MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1911 RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, BRUNSWICK STRKBT, STAMFORD STRKKT, S.B. AND AT BUNGAY, SUFFOLK. CONTENTS PAGK INTRODUCTION .................. I I.— MOMBASA .................... 4 II. — THE UGANDA RAILWAY .............. 15 III.--THE VICTORIA NYANZA . . • ........... 2/ IV.— ARCHIPELAGOES AND ISLANDS OF THE LAKE ... 41 V.— UGANDA ......... ' ........... 56 VI.— KAMPALA .................... 68 VII. — DRUMS ..................... 83 VIII. — MASAI ^ ...................... 92 IX.— WA-KIKUYU ................... 105 X.— ORNAMENTS FOR EARS AND LIPS ......... IlS XI. — NDOROBO .................... 131 XII. — KAYIRONDOS ................... 140 XIII.— ETHIOPIAN FASHIONS IN HAIR-DRESSING ..... 156 XIV. — ON SAFARI ................... 166 XV. — AN UNCAGED ZOO ............. ... l8o XVI. — THE LION ..................... 201 XVII.— THE CROCODILE ................. 213 XVIII.— THE CRATERS OF THE RIFT VALLEY ....... 226 XIX.— THE RIFT VALLEY AND ITS LAKES ........ 243 XX.— THORNS ..................... 252 XXL— HORNS ..................... 266 XXII.— ANTELOPES ................... 276 XXIII. — GAZELLES AND COBS ............... 287 1C98S16 vi CONTENTS PAGE XXIV. — GNUS AND DUIKERS 299 XXV.— PESTS : JIGGERS, TICKS, AND MOSQUITOES 307 XXVI.— FLIES AND SLEEPING SICKNESS 318 XXVII.— TERMITES (WHITE ANTS) 327 XXVIII.— BEAKS 337 XXIX.— CRESTS 354 XXX.— TAILS 367 XXXI.— IVORY 387 XXXII.— HIPPOPOTAMUS 405 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Porter with an elephant's tusk 3 An Arab doorway, Mombasa 5 Papaw tree ... 7 Baobab tree g Castor Oil plant 10 Gecko 12 Thomson's Gazelle 16 Parasitic Ficus 19 Water-carrier 24 Nandi woman and baby 25 Iron twisted by an elephant 26 Bagrus docmac 28 Screaming Sea-Eagle 29 Speke's Antelope 34 Mud-fish 36 Head of Mud-fish 37 Mud-fish in its Cocoon 38 Papyrus raft 39 Victoria Xyanza (map) 42 Fetish Hut 47 Uganda boat 49 Sesse boat on the lake 51 Hippopotamus harpoons 53 Hippopotamus and calf 55 Banana 61 Banana leaves 63 Boy collecting termites 64 Scaly anteater 65 Spirit-shelter 67 viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS I'AGB Ant-hill 69 Chameleons 73 Mutesa's tomb and Mutesa's grave 74 The Thatched Cathedral and drummery 77 Interior of the Uganda Cathedral 78 St. Paul's Cathedral, Uganda 79 Hannington's Raven 80 Uganda drum 84 Women drummers at Suna's tomb 85 Sesse Guitar 87 Ashantee fetish drum 88 Church drums 9° Niam-Niam war drum 91 Masai warrior 93 Masai arm-clamp 94 Masai woman • 97 Masai bleeding an ox 99 Masai Bull 101 Honey barrel 106 Gallipot as an ear-ornament .... • 107 Honey barrel in a tree 108 Woman carrying wood 1 10 Kikuyu woman pounding grain 1 1 1 Kikuyu woman with many ear-rings 112 Ear ornament 114 The Spotted Hyaena 115 Skull of hya;na 116 External ear, or pinna 119 Ear of a Masai 120 Stone ball for the ear 121 Ear stone in situ 122 Masai ear-ring 123 Ear with reeds in it 124 Ear with wooden plug 125 Woman with a labret and ear plugs 127 Murle woman with labret • . . . 128 A pelele" 130 Ndorobo elephant spear 132 Ndorobo with ear buckets 1 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix PACK Ndorobo fire-making 136 Colobus Monkey 138 Kavirondo woman with tassel 141 Kavirondo's tail 142 Kavirondo matron • . . . . 144 Ja-luo girl 145 Kavirondo women with fish-baskets 147 Stone wall of a Kavirondo village 148 Interior of a Kavirondo village 149 Unmarried Kissii girl 150 Kavirondo milkmaid 151 Kavirondo charms 153 Doorway in the wall of a village 155 Kikuyu man with a paunch cap 157 Masai mode of hair-dressing 158 Nandi dandy 159 Suk with chignon 160 Shilluk dandy 160 Dodinga head-dress 162 Mashukulumbi chignon 163 Ja-luo hair fashion 164 Ja-luo ear-rings .... • 164 Head of Reed-buck 170 The Flamingo 171 Head of Wart- Hog 172 The Impalla i/4 The Serval Cat 175 The Silent Lake with Ibis and Hippopotamus 178 Serval Kitten 179 Aard-vark or Antbear 185 Defassa Waterbuck 186 Grant's Zebra 188 Donkey with cross stripes on the legs 189 Oxpeckers 193 Coney 195 Honey-guide 197 Organ Shrike 198 Speke's Black metal-toned Whistler 199 Prickle on the lion's tail 203 x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS I'AGE Crocodile 214 Head of young Crocodile 215 Teeth of a Crocodile 216 Skull of Crocodile . .' 218 Monitor 220 Plover 221 Buff-backed Heron 222 Danger at the Pool 223 Giant Lobelias 227 Lobelia ground 230 Giant Groundsel 234 Lobelia ground on Ruwenzori 238 Flower column of a Giant Lobelia 241 Ambatch Canoe • . . . . 248 The bow-string hemp 253 Sisal Plant 254 Acacia thorns 256 Leaf of a willow with stipules 258 Candelabra euphorbia 260 Kigelia tree 263 Antelope's skull and horn-core : . . 268 Skull of Roan Antelope 270 Skull of Hartebeest 271 Skull of Bubaline Antelope 272 Tail of African Elephant 274 Head of Chameleon with three horns 275 Bushbuck 278 Bongo 279 Kudu • 281 Elands 282 Oryx 284 Horn sheath of Kudu 285 Grant's Gazelle 289 Gerenuk 291 Steinboks 292 Head of Dik-dik 293 Karamojo necklace 294 Oribi 295 Waterbuck 296 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi PAGE Horns of Mrs. Gray's Waterbuck 297 Gnu 300 Heads of Gnus 301 Hartebeest on ant-hill 302 Duiker 303 Wild Dog 305 Sand Flea 308 Tick 310 Mosquito 315 Tsetse Flies 320 Fossil tsetse-fly 321 Trypanosomes 323 Tsetse-fly 326 Termites 328 Queen 329 Ant-hill of unusual shape 333 Aard-Wolf 335 Skull of Aard-Wolf 336 Open-bill 338 Shell of Ampullaria 339 Hornbills .• 341 Head of Ground Hornbill 342 Whale-headed Stork 344 Darter 345 Marabou Stork • . . . . 348 Head of Skimmer 350 Skimmer 352 Hammerhead 357 Secretary Bird 358 African Hoopoe 359 European Hoopoe 360 Great Crested Touraco 361 Head of Crowned Crane 363 Crowned Crane 364 Helmet Shrike 365 Weaver Finch 369 Weaver Finch (dancing) 370 Mouse Bird 372 Shrike 373 Xll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PACK Sunbirds 374 Tecoma flowers 375 Crested Bustard and Bee-eater 378 Coucal 38i Racket-winged Nightjar 382 Pennant- winged Nightjar 3$3 Long-tailed African Dove 385 Buff-backed Heron on an elephant 389 Musket ball surrounded by secondary dentine 392 Elephant trap 394 Spear in an elephant's tusk 395 Spiral tusks 397 Ivory panel. 8.0.850-700 398 Fetish tusk-trumpet • . . . . 399 Elephant's tusk in transverse section 4°i Musket ball in the pulp chamber of a tusk 4°3 Hippopotamus 4°° Skull of hippopotamus 4°7 Circular tusk of hippopotamus 4°9 Thorn in the foot 4" MAN AND BEAST IN EASTERN ETHIOPIA INTRODUCTION A STUDY of the distribution of animal life over the globe, especially in regard to birds, has taught zoologists that the division of the Earth into hemispheres and continents is not convenient for their purpose. In 1857, Sclater suggested a division of the world from an ornithological point of view into six regions ; Africa, a part of Arabia, and Madagascar constitute the important Ethiopian Region. The revival of the name Ethiopia is a happy event. The ancient Greeks called a large tract of north-eastern Africa Ethiopia ; to them it was a land of magic and mystery. To Europeans in the twentieth century large tracts of the African continent remain mysterious. From a zoological stand- point the Ethiopian Region is one of the most remarkable on the globe. Those parts of it known as the British East Africa Protectorate and the Uganda Protectorate (thanks to the Uganda Railway) have been rendered accessible to all men and women interested in the native races of these two countries, as well as the mammalian and avian forms which have lived there almost undis- turbed by man from remote periods. I say undisturbed by man, because it will be obvious to those who visit the great meridional trench known as the Rift Valley that the district has been the seat of volcanic disturb- ance on a stupendous scale within a comparatively recent period. In the immediate vicinity of the valley B 2 EASTERN ETHIOPIA there are many extinct volcanoes, and the craters of some contain forests in which mighty beasts, such as lions, elephants, and elands, roam. Dotted along the trench are numerous lakes, the resort of immense numbers of birds, including some of the strangest forms living on the earth to-day, and also the biggest. The lion dominates the " rolling seas of grass " ; the rhinoceros shows resentment to trespassers among the bushes and scrub ; elephants use the dense forests as retreats ; and crocodiles lie in wait in nearly all the lakes and rivers, ready to drown any unwary man, beast, or bird that comes within reach of their dangerous, trap-like jaws or treacherous tails. Anxious to see something of Eastern Ethiopia I made a journey, accompanied by my friend and colleague Dr. Comyns -Berkeley, to the Victoria Nyanza. We started from Mombasa, and in due course reached the lake and visited its northern shore. On the return journey we went " On Safari " in the Rift Valley. Whilst writing this book I realised that some subjects discussed in it could be made clearer by a visit to that part of the Nile which courses through the torrid Sudan, especially the Sudd region around Lake No. With this object I made a boat journey up the White Nile and the Bahr-el-Gebel as high as Rejaf. This journey was full of interest, for the Nile Valley is a convenient highway for European birds seeking com- fortable winter quarters in the forest and lake regions of the Rift Valley. In this book I describe my im- pressions in a series of essays. Seven of these deal with Mombasa, the Uganda Railway, the Victoria Nyanza. and Uganda ; seven with the natives we met during our visit, such as the Masai, Wa-Kikuyu, Ndorobo, and Kavirondo, including an account of their curious ear ornaments and modes of hair-dressing. A description of the natural features of the Rift Valley occupies ten essays, under the titles of Crater, Lakes, INTRODUCTION 3 Lions, Crocodiles, Thorns, Horns, Antelopes, etc. Some of the extraordinary birds are described under the titles of Beaks, Crests, Tails, and Wings. British East Africa is a " land of unsettled problems," and Uganda abounds in ticks, jiggers, tsetse-flies, and gnats — a dreadful set of pests for man and beast. These scourges are here considered, as well as one of the greatest curses of Africa — ivorv. A large tusk is a load for a porter. B 2 I MOMBASA THE GATE BY WHICH COMMERCE AND CHRISTIANITY ENTERED EAST AFRICA IT is undeniable that after spending fifteen days on the high seas the eyes and the mind grow weary of the apparently interminable watery part of the world surrounding the ship. Watch the excitement among the passengers when the news " land in sight " travels round the decks, saloons, and smoking-room. I am convinced that the majority of passengers soon grow weary of the sea, even when the weather is uniformly fair and sunny : some of them become quarrelsome ; many pass sleepless nights, especially in tropical and subtropical regions, and few really enjoy themselves. When the weather is bad and the ship " pitches " or " rolls," and more especially when the decks are awash, the lot of the passenger is often very uncomfortable, and those who are not sea-sick are honestly " sick of the sea." Under such conditions, instead of being elated with the interminable procession of roaring waves, they will, with honest old Gonzalo, freely give " a thousand furlongs of the sea for an acre of barren ground ; long heath, brown furze, anything." We had spent seven days in an uncomfortable ship ; its deck was hampered with mules from Somaliland and with pilgrims. It is true we saw on the way the mighty Cape Guardafui, which lacks a lighthouse, much to the advantage of the natives living along the coast, who, like the Cornish wreckers of olden days, thrive on MOMBASA stranded ships. But this merely increased our delight when the ship entered the narrow old harbour of Mombasa at daybreak. The white people in Mombasa are mainly English Many of the houses are well constructed and bear unmis- takable evidence of an Arab origin ; there are several interesting old doors and doorways. 6 EASTERN ETHIOPIA i officials, traders, and agents. During the construction of the Uganda Railway, it was necessary to import twenty thousand men from India, chiefly Punjabis. On the completion of the railway the Indians settled in the country and became store-keepers, clerks, cooks, engine drivers, stokers, carpenters, artisans, station-masters, telegraphists, and moneylenders. In consequence Indians abound throughout the inhabited parts of the British East Africa Protectorate. They are shrewd, enterprising, and thrifty. This wholesale introduction of Indians explains the nature of the currency, for rupees, annas, with cents to replace pice, constitute the mechan- ism of exchange. The black (native) population consists of Swahilis and Arabs. The native quarter is situated on the part of the town facing the harbour. The houses are built of wattle and dab and thatched with dry grass. This part of the town is traversed by narrow streets such as pre- vail in the native quarters of towns in Eastern countries. Many of the houses, especially those occupied by the Indians, are well constructed and bear unmistakable evidence of an Arab origin ; there are several interesting old doors and doorways. The native town has a commodious fish market and an interesting vegetable market. Each is worth an occasional visit, for curious fishes and fruits may often be seen there. Many towns and islands which present an artistic and alluring prospect from the sea are woefully disappoint- ing on landing. This is not the case with Mombasa. We landed on the second day of the New Year and found Vasco da Gama Street adorned with the flamboy- ant gold mohur in full flower. The brilliant purple bougainvillea grew around and covered the walls of houses, hid the clumsy wooden pillars of the verandahs, entwined itself along rudely arranged trellis-work, adorned the gardens of the Law Court, and decorated the weird and massive trunks of the mighty leafless baobabs. Few men have their names so exquisitely MOMBASA preserved as is the case with the great French circum- navigator Bougainville, who introduced this beautiful plant into the Eastern hemisphere from South America. The Papaw tree (Carica papaya) with its curious fruit sessile on the upper part of the stem. The tree attains a height of 5 metres (20 feet). An excellent road traverses the island from the old port to Kilindini. It is bordered by huge mango trees EASTERN ETHIOPIA i rich in foliage tind fertile with fruit. Alternating with the mango trees are groups of cocoa-nut palms with their fruit ripening in the sun, and the Papaw tree (Cari<-« papaya) with its curious fruit sessile on the upper part of the stem. The male Howers are borne on a separate tree from that which bears the fruit. The papaya fruit when ripe is edible, but does not deserve the epithet " delicious " so thoroughly merited by the fruit of the mango. The fruit of the papaw is considered to aid digestion, and it has been proved that the milky sap (latex) which exudes from its stem and leaves contains a ferment (papayotin) resembling pepsin : it is also averred that if meat be wrapped in its leaves two hours before being cooked it becomes tender. The baobab, or monkey bread tree, abounds on the island and adjacent coast land. This, the biggest tree in the world, was named Adansonia digitata after Adauson, the celebrated botanist. I measured the circumference of the trunk of some of these trees, and found several in which it exceeded sixty feet. Examples have been recorded with a girth of one hundred and twelve feet. These trees only bear leaves during the rainy season, and the bare branches with the pendulous fruit look very weird, and as they stretch heavenward recall strongly the human beings . transformed into trees as represented in Gustav Dore"s illustration of Dante's seventh circle of the Inferno. There is good excuse for the opinion held by some of the native tribes that these fantastic trees are inhabited by ghosts. The baobab is useful to the natives, for they eat the fruit, and the outer shell forms an excellent calabash which is in great demand for making water buckets, but its wood is light, soft, and useless. The most northern baobab gr<>\\ - in the Palace garden, Khartoum : it was planted by Schweinfurth. It is worth while when the tide is out to walk down to the shore of the old harbour ; this is quite a simple matter, for a pathway leads to the shore by the side of i MOMBASA 9 the old fort built by the Portuguese and now used as a jail. It has been already mentioned that Mombasa is a coral island, arid has, like the adjacent coast, a fringing reef. When the tide is out, it is easy to walk across the reef which is then covered by a few inches of water : The Baobab or Monkey Bread Tree. even at high tide the water is only a few feet in depth, but in the comparatively narrow interval between the reef fringing the land and that surrounding the island, the water suddenly attains a depth of sixteen fathoms. This makes it necessary for navigators to exercise 10 EASTERN ETHIOPIA extreme care in entering the harbour. The dangers encountered by a ship threading its way along this narrow channel were well illustrated at the time of my visit, for a steamship was lying high upon the reef immediately under the lighthouse, and as all efforts to remove the ship into deep water had proved unavailing, the vessel was being dismantled. The Castor-oil Plant (Kicinus communis) is sure to attract attention. It is instructive, also amusing, when the tide is low to walk over the reef among the half- exposed rocks and examine the marine life occupying the pools or lurking under the movable pieces of rock. Such pools and recesses are occupied by hundreds of crabs ; as they i MOMBASA ii scuttle away sideways and with astonishing quickness it requires some alertness on the part of the collector to catch them. The parts of the islands immediately bordering the sea are thick with vegetation, and the castor-oil plant (Ridnus eommunis) is sure to attract attention. Another common plant is the Cape gooseberry. The wealth and beauty of the butterflies flitting among the plants soon impress the visitor with the fact that he is in a tropical region. The birds, too, are interesting, especially the weaver finches, some of which build their nests in the branches of the bougainvilleas that grow in the gardens bordering the roadway ; even in those which overhang it. The comparative security of birds is shown by the freedom in which they build in the haunts of men. The verandah of the Court of Justice is adorned by the nests of swallows. Every part of this fertile island teems with life, animal and vegetable. My visits to the club used to interest me, for pretty weaver finches flit through the branches of the trees in the club gardens, lizards ran along the railings, and in the silence of the library it was amusing to watch geckoes dart across the ceiling catch- ing flies. In the short evening hour the European population takes the air. The chief mode of locomotion is the jinricksha, but there is a narrow trolley- way running across the island to Kilindini with lateral branches to official residences. The small cars which run on these lines are pushed by native boys. These cars and jinrickshas are very useful, especially as there are no horses. There is a cosmic phenomenon of some interest which can be seen and studied in the Indian Ocean and throughout the East far better than in England, namely the zodiacal light. Shortly before the dawn, a lenticular patch of soft white light, with its base on the eastern horizon and its apex pointing to the zenith, 12 EASTERN ETHIOPIA is seen exactly over the spot where the sun is about to appear. The extent and intensity of the luminuos In the silence of the library it was amusing to watch a gecko dart across the ceiling catching flies. The inset shows the lamellae which enable it to climb easily and quickly smooth vertical surfaces. area vary greatly, and the variations depend very much on the condition of the atmosphere. In the evening, about an hour after sunset, a similar luminous cone appears in the sky at the place where the sun has just quitted the horizon. i MOMBASA 13 The zodiacal light is visible in Northern latitudes in the morning during the months of September and October, and in the evening during February and March. For many years I have watched for this cone of light in England and never felt satisfied that I had seen it. In 1903, when I was watching from the deck of a ship in the Indian Ocean in order to see the planet Mercury rise shortly before the dawn, the eastern sky was illuminated by a large triangular area of soft white light, so bright that I hastily looked at my watch fearing lest I had come on deck too late, and had missed my opportunity of seeing Mercury. To my great astonishment this beautiful luminous area con- tracted, shortened, and faded away ; the darkness again became profound until the true dawn. Then, realising that I had seen the "false dawn," the lines of Omar's quatrain came instinctively to my lips :— Before the phantom of False morning died, Methought a voice within the tavern cried " When all the Temple is prepared within, Why nods the drowsy Worshipper outside." I have often watched on deck in the early morning when crossing the Indian Ocean, but have never seen the light so intense as on this occasion. A captain who had spent many years in traversing this ocean told me that one morning when lying outside an Indian harbour, with a difficult entry, waiting for the dawn, the " false dawn " was so bright that he mistook it for the real dawn, and, having weighed anchor, proceeded to steam into the harbour, but the light faded and he had to await the real dawn. The " false dawn " or dawn's " left hand." as it is sometimes called in the poetical imagery of the East, is of some concern to the muezzin who wakes the " drowsy worshipper " by shouting from the minaret. The Mahomedan day begins with the real dawn, an i4 EASTERN ETHIOPIA i important moment in connection with the fasting during Ramadan. The zodiacal light is often brilliant in the evening, especially in the neighbourhood of the equator, and it persists longer than the morning form. When the moon shines in the early morning it is difficult to dis- tinguish the false dawn with certainty ; when Venus is a morning or an evening star, her rays are sufficient to obscure the zodiacal light. The brilliancy of those stars which lie in the luminous triangle is in no way diminished. In Mombasa the stars sometimes shine with extra- ordinary brilliancy, and it is an impressive sight to see Orion glittering in the zenith, with Sirius, Fomalhaut, and the Southern Cross, in the east, and the Great Bull " low on the Western Main." Among other natural phenomena of the tropics which appeal to those visiting these regions for the first time, mention may be made of the great width and vividness of the rainbow ; the rapidity with which the sun appears to rise above or slip below the rim of the horizon at sunrise and sunset, and the briefness of the twilight. It is true that in order to appreciate the cosmic as well as the biologic aspects of countries on, or near, the equator " they must be seen with northern eyes." II THE UGANDA RAILWAY U. R. These are the initials of one of the most romantic railways in the world. It starts from Mombasa and follows in the main the old caravan route to Kavirondo. After many difficulties encountered in its construction and a great expenditure of money, the first locomotive ran into Kisumu (Port Florence), on the Victoria Nyanza, in December, 1901. The distance from the sea-coast to the terminus at the lake is 580 miles. From Port Florence steamers convey passengers and goods across the lake to the towns on the northern shore : the chief of these being Entebbe, Kampala, and Jinja. The distance from Port Florence to Entebbe is 175 miles. The country traversed by the rail- way is very interesting. After leaving Mombasa and crossing the bridge over the Makupa creek the line ascends a steep grade which affords an excellent view of the island and glimpses of the sea : it passes through groves of cocoa-nut palms, orange and pome- granate trees, and banana plantations. Later the railway traverses the Taru desert, which is covered with scrub and small trees, the timber of which is large enough to be used as fuel for the engines. Wood is used almost exclusively for the engines, and the heaps of coal so common around big stations and junctions in Europe are here replaced by long stacks of logs, each log measuring six feet in length. In some parts of the journey the logs are obtained from the tall juniper trees, and they are as fragrant as cedar-wood. 15 i6 EASTERN ETHIOPIA 11 About 280 miles from Mombasa the railways enters the Athi plain, and around Simba station lions are plentiful. The rhinoceros and giraffe are occasionally seen in this section of the line. The amount of game on the plain varies with the condition of the grass : when favourable hundreds of zebra, herds of hartebeest (kongoni) and wildebeest (gnu) will'be seen. Ostriches are often " on view " walking one behind the other, apparently as self-conscious as bridesmaids walking up the aisle of a church in the wake of the bride at a fashionable wedding. These birds mingle with zebras on the grazing grounds. Scattered about in small herds, often in close proximity to the line, this pretty gazelle will be recognised. It was discovered by Joseph Thomson in his journey through Masailand to the Victoria Nyanza (1883). ii THE UGANDA RAILWAY 17 Scattered about in small herds, often in close proximity to the line, the pretty Thomson's gazelles will be recognised. These antelopes as well as (J rant's gazelles mix with the herds of hartebeest and zebra. In the distance a number of vultures are sometimes seen Hying around 'and forming a vortex. This indi- cates in many instances that a lion is busy feeding, and these birds are waiting to play the part of scavengers when the beast has finished his meal and retired from the carcase. After crossing the Athi river the line runs to Nairobi, 327 miles from Mombasa. NAIROBI This town is situated on the river of the same name, and occupies a place where formerly lions roamed and roared. In 1 909 a lion walked up the principal street at eight o'clock in the evening, and a man on a bicycle ran into him, fortunately without harm. Nairobi is the capital of the Ukamba Province. The Governor of the British East Africa Protectorate resides here, and the Commissioner of the Province. The chief office of the Uganda Railway is in this town : the locomotive and carriage workshops occupy an extensive area near the station. The railway works are worth a visit : natives may be seen working steam- hammers and riveting boilers who a year previously were running about the country naked. The town consists of Government offices, hotels, shops, banks and houses, many of which are built mainly of corrugated iron ; hence it has been facetiously named Tinville. There are some substantial stone and brick buildings, notably the Post Office, Treasury, the Roman Catholic Church and its schools. There is also an excellent hospital, and a hospitable club. Efforts are also being made to establish a comprehensive local museum for the purpose of illustrating the Ethnology, c 1 8 EASTERN ETHIOPIA n Zoology, Botany, Geology, and the native arts of the British East Africa and Uganda Protectorates. Nairobi is a centre for settlers. It is situated in the midst of a fertile country from which supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables are readily obtained. There is a local market for meat, fruit, and vegetables. The surrounding country contains wild animals in profusion, and an official who lives on the outskirts of the town informed me that his wife found snakes in the garden, that he had shot a kongoni (hartebeest) in the same garden, and sometimes amused himself bv shooting a zebra from the verandah. That portion of the town lying along the river was formerly a papyrus swamp, and this beautiful rush still grows along its margins, but the land adjacent to the river is now a fertile garden where mealies, cabbages, French beans, bananas, and pomegranates flourish. Castor-oil plants, coffee trees, and Cape gooseberries grow wild. Land has risen in value and Nairobi is destined to become a big and prosperous town. The streets are lighted with electricity and electric trams will replace the jinrickshas which are now the common vehicle for the conveyance of passengers to and from the station. We spent delightful days in Nairobi, making the acquaintance of many of the officials, all willing to relate their experiences and help us to obtain some knowledge on matters connected with the country, the natives, the animals, the birds, and the pests. In the woods there is a Ficus which, when fully grown, may measure six or even eight feet around the base of the trunk and attain a height of fifty or sixty feet ; it throws out large branches with heavy foliage. When the head of the tree is carefully examined, the trunk of a dead tree will be seen projecting among the branches. The natural history of the tree is this : — The outside tree is parasitic in the beginning and, like an outrunner of ivy, climbs up a well-grown tree ; as the parasite II THE UGANDA RAILWAY grows and climbs its stalks coalesce around the trunk of its host ; in the course of a few years these originally CB A tall tree in the deadly embrace of a parasitic Ficus. independent stalks of the parasite will so fuse together that the exterior of the trunk appears perfectly uniform. c 2 20 EASTERN ETHIOPIA n I examined several of these trees in various stages of growth and satisfied myself on these points. In some instances, the implicated tree seems as if surrounded by boa constrictors ; before its life is completely destroyed, the branches and leaves of the original tree may be seen mingling with those of the destroying parasite. The most complete specimen I was able to examine stands in the grounds of the French Mission about three miles from Nairobi. The figs on these trees, though tasteless, are eaten by Masai children, pigeons, hornbills and starlings (Hinde). The Masai display reverence for this tree and occasionally propitiate it by killing a goat beneath it. From the Sports Ground the snowy summit of Kili- manjaro is usually visible in the afternoon ; and about four o'clock the beautiful snow-clad majestic peak of Kenia (17,000 feet), glorified with the colours of sunset, appears unveiled above the clouds. After leaving Nairobi the railway climbs the slope to Kikuyu station (340 miles from Mombasa), passing through forests which shelter elephants to Escarpment station, and here reaches the edge of the famous Rift Valley at an elevation of 7,830 feet above sea-level. The train descends the ravine to Kitjabe, which marks the limit of the Ukamba Province. Kitjabe means " windy," and the place is well described by Sir Charles Eliot as " a dusty gusty station." The view of the Rift Valley from the escarpment is inexpressibly grand, with the great mass of Longonot rising from the floor of the valley. The descent to Kitjabe station is fascinating. The line passes across numerous viaducts built at a great height above ravines. The station is half-way down the descent to the valley, and at this point the view is magnificent. Above we see the well- wooded hills ; below, the slope to Lake Naivasha, and beyond is the Mau Escarpment on the opposite side of the valley. In the descent from the Kikuyu escarpment to the fioor of the valley the line ii THE UGANDA RAILWAY 21 descends 1,400 feet, then passes along the valley to Xaivasha station (390 miles) within sight of the lake. Along this beautiful valley game of all kinds is plentiful ; antelope, zebra, ostrich, and birds of large size or beautiful plumage can be seen from the train. This part of the line is wonderful, not only from the variety and abundance of birds and animals which inhabit or visit it, but also from the weird scenery caused by the changing colour along the escarpment and around the two extinct volcanoes Longonot and Suswa. The large herds of cattle, the flocks of sheep, and of goats belonging to the pastoral Masai are additional features of interest in this extraordinary and fertile valley. The Rift Valley in the neighbourhood of Lake Naivasha is 6,300 feet above the level of the sea ; its floor is clothed with grass and clover, with here and there a collection of small trees. The turf is much like what we are accustomed to see in England ; indeed, when covered with herds of cattle and flocks of sheep it resembles an English park, except that the cattle are humped and a few Thomson's gazelles may be seen running among the cattle. The third section of the railway ends at Nakuru, which is a town Iviiiff under the extinct volcano v Menengai, and is approximately the centre of the Rift Valley. This town is the starting point of excursions to Lake Baringo. After leaving Nakuru the train climbs the Mau Escarpment (460 miles), where it attains an altitude of 8,300 feet. Here it leaves the Rift Valley and traverses the fertile land and the forests of large trees in the Kisumu Province. The line then descends through the Nyando Valley to Muhoroui, where the country becomes comparatively flat. The most conspicuous features in this part of the route are the enormous number of acacia trees, whose stems and branches resemble inverted umbrellas, the kigelia or sausage-tree, and huge can- delabra euphorbias. 22 EASTERN ETHIOPIA n From Muhoroni the railway runs under the Nandi Escarpment and reaches Port Florence, its terminus at Kavirondo Bay, Victoria Nyanza, where a comfortable steamboat conveys passengers to Uganda. Whilst waiting for the steamer to start we spent an interesting hour watching the fishermen on the lake shore, as well as amusing ourselves with the crowned cranes, which could be approached as easily as the fowls in a barn -yard. Throughout the greater part of a railway journey from the coast to the Victoria Nyanza the country presents a panorama of absorbing interest. The variations in the physical conditions of the provinces traversed by the railway are remarkable. After leaving Mombasa with its heat, humidity, and fertility, the line slowly climbs a long extensive slope covered with scrub, and unsuitable for cultivation. Scrub is a term in constant use in relation to land in East Africa ; it may be described as coarse grass, with stunted, thorny bushes growing among it, with trees here and there. An extensive tract covered in this way is known as the Nyika (wilderness or desert). From the moment the train leaves the Salisbury Bridge attention is sure to be arrested by the brick-red earth. This is especially noticeable in the railway cuttings. A large part of the Protectorate is covered with a sheet of lava, which is gradually undergoing disintegration and forms a very fertile soil. It is curious to see the huge ant-hills arising by the side of the railway, many of them ten feet high and as red as any chimney pot in rural England. Some of them present several openings and look like a cluster of chimney pots. Occasionally a tree will be found growing in the midst of an ant-hill, and here and there ant nests will be seen in trees. Around Nairobi, and especially in the Kikuyu country, honey-barrels hang in the trees, arid they form curious objects as seen from the train. ii THE UGANDA RAILWAY 23 The temperature throughout the journey varies within very wide limits. It is a curious and pleasant experience to pass from the moist and sticky heat of the coast to the dry and agreeable air of the Ukamba Province, but it is a surprise to wake up in the early morning on the Athi Plain, in the Kikuyu forest, or at the Mau Escarpment shivering with cold and to find the temperature at, or very little above, the freezing point. The alterations in the physical and atmospheric conditions in the countries traversed by the railway is attended with corresponding changes in the characters of the trees, shrubs, bushes, and plants. As we leave the coast, the tropical vegetation is gradually replaced by the prickly acacia and the euphorbia. Around Nairobi the landscape is beautified with the calodendron, hibiscus, salvia, ficus, and wild coffee. The Kikuyu forests abound in junipers, wild olives, brambles, violets, clover, and bracken. Higher still comes the scrub, the prickly bush, and the acacia. In the rains these trees are covered with leaves, and are further beautified by the convolvulus and other creepers which invade them and burst into flower. The tribes of men living in the districts traversed by the railway are sure to interest travellers. The chief of these are Wa- Kikuyu, Masai, Kavirondo, and Nandi. In a railway journey through 580 miles of country it is probable that examples of all these races will be seen. Many come down to watch the train from sheer curiosity. Others walk along the footway by the side of the line or will be seen engaged in work, or herding cattle. Many are as interested in the white passenger as the latter is curious about them. Some of the natives come to barter or to sell curiosities and especially spears. Among the various contrivances which civilisation has introduced into East Africa, there is probably none which the natives find more useful than the kerosene EASTERN ETHIOPIA ii can ; it is greatly appreciated by them and has replaced gourds in their domestic economy. The kerosene can is used as a bucket for d rawing c5 water from a well, or as a pail for its conveyance. When such a can is divided and a hole made in the end of either half it becomes a useful funnel. On visiting a village it is common to see these cans used as sauce- pans, baking - tins, ovens, and parrot cages ; receptacles for pombe (beer) ; useful boxes for clothes or books, and travelling- trunks ; one can well- packed is a sufficient, as well as a convenient load for a porter to carry on his head, and two of them are easily adjusted as panniers for donkeys. The European sett- lers use the kerosene can as tubs for shrubs and as flower pots ; the edges of the cans when used for flowers are cut into triangular patterns, much in the same way as the Masai herdsmen clip the ears of their cattle. When the kerosene can is useless as a vessel for holding liquids, it is hammered out and the square sheets are useful for roofing huts. The kerosene can has largely replaced gourds for the conveyance of water in British East Africa. ii THE UGANDA RAILWAY 25 Travelling along the Uganda Railway from Mombasa to its lake terminus at Port Florence, the tourist will see zebras, hartebeests (kongoni), wildebeests (gnus), Thomson's gazelles, Grant's gazelles, wart-hogs, and • ' [Photograph by F. L. Henderton. The Simple Life. Naudi woman and baby. buckbuck. With good luck he may see elands, giratfe, and the rhinoceros, and, if he be exceptionally lucky, a lion in the early morning, and a hyaena in the late afternoon. 26 EASTERN ETHIOPIA 11 Of birds the following will interest him : ostriches, bustards, eagles, hawks, and vultures ; shrikes sit on the telegraph wires. Among others he will recognise the glossy starling, drongo, weaver birds, chats, the crowned crane, hornbill, touraco, coly, swallow, bee-eater, stork, oxpecker, and the secretary bird. The Uganda Railway is unique of its kind, for it is probably the only railroad in the world where monkeys swing on the telegraph wires ; giraffes break the wire with their long necks in crossing the track, and the rhinoceros tilts at telegraph poles in true quixotic style. As a rule, the laugh is with the animal. On rare occasions a lion promenades the platform and interferes with business. A T-iron (eight feet long, eight inches wide, and a quarter inch thick), used as a pedestal for a telegraph post. It was twisted by an elephant. Ill THE VICTORIA XYANZA, THE GREATEST LAKE IN AFRICA Ax extraordinary fascination surrounds the history of the Victoria Nyanza. It is remarkable that a lake with a shore-line of 3,200 miles and an area of 25,000 square miles lying in the midst of a thickly populated region of East Africa should have remained undis- covered to the modern civilised world until Speke discovered it in 1858. Now the lake is daily traversed by steamers with regular ports of call, engaged in conveying passengers, tourists, and cargo as safely as on Lake Michigan. Port Florence (Kisumu) is on the shore of Kavirondo Gulf, a nearly land-locked inlet about thirty miles long, and varying in width from two to three miles. This gulf is on the north-eastern shore of the lake, and the channel by which it communicates with the main water is almost blocked with islands. Anyone visiting the lake will appreciate the difficulties experienced by the early explorers in deciding between islands and prominent headlands, unless the parts were carefully explored : this in many instances was difficult on account of the hostility of the inhabitants. The Nile leaves the lake at Napoleon Gulf on the northern shore. As the steamer enters this gulf and approaches the landing stage at Jinja there is nothing to lead one to suspect that the falls are so near. A prominent bluff pushes into the lake between the landing stage and the falls ; in order to see the latter it is necessary to leave the steamer and walk over a low 27 28 EASTERN ETHIOPIA in grass-covered hill, when suddenly the Ripon Falls, or cascades of Jinja, come into view. The river at its origin divides Uganda on the west from Busoga on its east bank. Speke on his second journey (1863) saw the falls from the Uganda side ; tourists are conducted to them by a well-kept pathway on the east side. As we traversed the footway, humped cattle grazed amidst a flock of buff-backed herons, busy picking ticks from the backs of oxen. On reaching the falls wre found the rushing water carrying over large fish ; the natives were busy securing some of them with spears. The ferry, as in Speke's time, runs across the gulf above the \\ Bayru* docmac. The rushing deep green waters carry large fish over the falls ; the natives who haunt the coves with their spear- like harpoons secure some of them. falls, but the crocodile and hippopotamus have retreated to the deep and silent pools a mile or so below, where the shores, thickly covered with trees, reeds, and rushes, are rendered dangerous by the dreaded tsetse-fly. The rocks and trees in the river immediately below the falls are crowded with herons, cormorants, and egrets. One of the most conspicuous birds around the lake and head-waters of the Nile is the Vociferous Sea- Eagle. This, the handsomest of all the sea-eagles with its white head, neck, breast and tail, but chestnut belly, looks superb perched alone on the top of a high tree and sometimes on a telegraph post for hours, occasionally Ill THE VICTORIA NYANZA 29 uttering loud, piercing screams. It takes little notice of man. I once shot a bee-eater perched on the lower 1 tranches of a tree, when a sea-eagle in the tree- top took no notice of the noise. In the cool of the afternoon we lingered, charmed and fascinated by this delightful spot. When the light began to fade we stepped into a native " dug-out " above The Screaming Sea-Eagle (ffaliaetuM vocifer) lives around the "birthplace of the Nile." the falls and sitting on its sides allowed ourselves to be paddled to the steamer lying in the lake. Frogs are very numerous in the lake, especially near the landing stages, and after nightfall keep up a continuous croaking and din, like the sound of machinery in a large factory. 30 EASTERN ETHIOPIA m There are certain phenomena connected with the lake which are worth consideration. The water of the main lake is deep blue, sweet, and good to drink, but in the bays it is dark and muddy : it varies greatly in depth, being only a few feet in the shallow bays and 280 feet in the main lake. The depth of the water also varies according to the wetness of the seasons, but independ- ently of these changes it is asserted that the surface of the lake has been slowly sinking since 1878, as deter- mined by markings on the cliff limiting the south shore. Many bold headlands round the coast were formerly islands, and many islands are separated from the main- land by narraw and often shallow channels. In the morning there is usually a land breeze from the south- east, and towards evening from the lake to the land. This action of the wind causes the level of the lake at Port Florence to be twelve inches higher in the after- noon than in the morning (Whitehouse). The movements of the curious papyrus islands are associated with these breezes. Many of the bays and creeks are filled with the beautiful papyrus rush, and the Victoria Nyanza, like other large bodies of water, is occasionally subject to violent storms which lead to the formation of huge waves. These disturbances lead to the detachment of large masses of papyrus rush from the banks, and the morning land-breeze drives them into the lake, and the evening breeze brings them back to the shore. Papyrus islands are usually seen in a voyage on the lake ; they form pretty objects floating about in an irresponsible manner. It is common to see a cormorant resting on -such a floating island, and occasionally a crocodile. A papyrus island the size of Trafalgar Square is sometimes occupied by a flock of egrets, and has density enough, in virtue of the long submerged roots of the rushes, to support a hippo- potamus. Captain Gray informed me that on one occasion, as his steamer entered Kavirondo Gulf, he found the water so crowded with these floating islands in THE VICTORIA NYANZA 31 that he had to steer the vessel with great care, and with some difficulty among them. These rush islands are pretty objects, and serve to variegate the surface of the lake. The shallow parts of the bays are also occupied by that troublesome plant Pistia xfrfffiafcs. which is one of the constituents of the sudd. The important elements of the sudd are papyrus rushes, reeds, feathery grass and occasionally ambatch. These are woven together by creeping plants of the convolvulus order. Near the level of the water the stems of the reeds and rushes are cemented together by aijiiatic plants of which Pistia is the most conspicuous : it is like a lettuce and has thick, pleated, succulent leaves. The plant throws out rhizomes along the surface of the water which in their turn bud, and the buds also throw out rhizomes. On the lake, and the upper reaches of the White Nile, Pistia is a common object quietly floating down-stream. The Victoria Nyanza may be regarded as a huge reservoir with one outlet, the Ripon Falls. Its chief affluent on the west is the Kagera river, and the Nzoia on the east. This enormous lake is visited by electrical storms of extraordinary violence. I had heard a great deal about these electric displays, and had the good fortune to witness one from the deck of a steamer. The night was very dark, and the sky became illuminated by almost persistent streams of yellow and blue electric light. The effect could only be described as horrible. When the steamer occupied the vortex of the storm, it seemed as if the lightning hissed as it rushed into the water of the lake. Whilst these streams of electric fluid were coursing downwards from the sky, the clouds were suffused by broad cascades and streams of light- ning resembling the aurora borealis. The instantaneous crashes of thunder following on the electric discharges resembled the detonations of huge shells or 100- ton guns. These storms are very common, and destroy the 32 EASTERN ETHIOPIA in lives of men and beasts as well as property. The boat from which we witnessed this terrible display had a piece of the mainmast detached by lightning in a previous voyage. Some of the American passengers appropriated the fragments with the intention of having them made into paper-knives as souvenirs of the storm. A Government official who knows the lake and its vicinity well explains the frequency and the intensity of these electrical storms by the fact that the hills, especially on the north-eastern shores of the lake, contain ironstone in large quantity, and especially on the Nandi escarpment. Standing on the hills above the escarpment the storms seem to be beneath the feet of the observer, and the currents of lightning appear to strike the face of the cliffs. The destructive force of such storms may be appreciated when one learns that thirty-two head of cattle were killed by one of these terrible flaming electric swords. These storms are accompanied by extremely heavy rain — more correctly, falling sheets of water. In the rainy season waterspouts occur, so that a voyage on the Victoria Nyanza may be as much marred by wind, storms, and rain as a voyage on the ocean. There is another curious and also unpleasant occurrence occasionally encountered on this wonderful lake, namely mosquito clouds. One morning whilst crossing the lake in the neighbourhood of the Buvuma archipelago I noticed in several directions an appearance like clouds of smoke, and at first thought that these smoke clouds came from fires on the islands. On watching them closely and remembering that the surface of the lake is nearly four thousand feet above sea-level I thought they might be clouds. Then the columns assumed fantastic shapes and began to gyrate over the lake, condensing and attenuating. Then one large cloud, in the form of a hollow cylinder, approached, encompassed the steamer, and enveloped it in millions of gnats. in THE VICTORIA NYANZA 33 These winged clouds are known to entomologists as "dancing-swarms." On any warm summer evening in England dancing-swarms of gnats may be seen over pools, ponds, or water-butts containing stagnant water. The eggs of the mosquito are hatched in warm water, and the larval and pupal stages are passed in this medium. When the pupae are ready to hatch they rise to the surface, emerge from the pupa-cases, dry their wings and fly away. In order to produce such enormous clouds of gnats the water of the lake must contain myriads of larv;e. The natives around the lake catch these gnats by means of grease and make them up into an oily kind of cake and eat them. Among the natives living around Lake Nyasa this preparation is known as " Kungu cake." Kungu means " mist," which the dense flights of these midges resemble. A description of the Kungu fly by the Rev. A. E. Eaton is given in the appendix to Elton's Journals (1879). It is identified as a gnat. He also states that similar immense swarms of gnats have appeared in England, and have been mistaken at a distance for columns of smoke. In Egypt dense flocks of pigeons in the distance are often mistaken for clouds. This is also true of locusts, dust, sand, and smoke. A description of the Victoria Nyanza would be in- complete without some consideration of a remarkable animal, the Marsh-buck ; a bird, the Jacana, or Lily- trotter ; the Mud or Lung fish (Lepidosiren), and the most beautiful of all rushes, the Papyrus. The first is the animal known as Speke's antelope, in honour of the distinguished traveller who discovered it on his second journey to find the source of the Nile (1863). The buck has horns spirally twisted, but they are absent in the female. Its hoofs are greatly elongated and adapted to enable the animal to walk on the sub- merged reeds and mud of the swamps in which it lives. The skin which covers the back of the pastern is hairless, D 34 EASTERN ETHIOPIA in thick, and horny : thus further augmenting the support- ing area of the foot. The marsh-buck spends most of its time in the water, standing among reeds with all but its head and hoins submerged: it can take tremendous leaps and move about at a great pace. Speke's Antelope ( Tricus) or lung fish. The natives of Uganda call it mamba, and appreciate it as an article of diet. This iish has a long cylindrical body like an eel, and D 2 EASTERN ETHIOPIA in sometimes attains a length of six feet : it is remarkable in many points, and especially from the fact that it has lungs as well as gills. In the dry season the marshes in which this fish lives dry up, and to meet this change the lepidosiren makes its way into the mud to the depth of eighteen inches, and coils up at the bottom of the burrow, where it makes a sort of cocoon, or capsule, The mud- or lung-fish. In the water it breathes by gills and lungs. When curled .up in its cocoon of mud it breathes by lungs. of hardened mucus secreted by the glands of its skin. Sequestered in this cocoon the fish breathes entirely by its lungs for half the year ; in this condition the earth in which the fish is embedded may be dug up, and the ball of earth with the fish in it may be transported anywhere. When placed in warm water the lepidosiren wakes up from the long sleep and resumes the double method of breathing. In its ordinary surroundings the in THE VICTORIA NYANZA 37 fish remains in the cocoon until the rainy season floods the marshes. Lepidosiren is a very voracious fish : it eats frogs, worms, insects, and crustaceans, and also exhibits cannibal in- stincts- by biting and eating its fel- lows. Indeed, Newton Parker, Who Wrote an Lepidosiren is a voracious fish ; it often nrlmiraKlp nr-nrmnr nf bites its companions and nips off the ends of their filamentous fins. When the mud-fish, States the fins grow again they are sometimes that it is difficult to keep these fish alive in an aquarium for any length of time owing to their habit of killing and eating one another even when supplied with an abundance of food. The bite from their scissor-like teeth causes terrible wounds. Lepidosiren has two pairs of filamentous fins, and of these the pectoral is longer than the pelvic pair, and occasionally one of these fins is bifid. Some years ago these animals were exhibited in a tank at the Zoological Gardens, and I noticed that one of the fins was bifid. The keeper told me that the deformity was due to its companion biting off the free end of the fin, and as the part grew again it became double. I am satisfied that this is a good explanation. It certainly accords with what we know of the lizard's tail, for when a lizard loses its tail and regeneration occurs, the new portion is often bifid and sometimes trifid at the tip. When the ends of tails are bitten off, the parts are regenerated but never attain their normal length. The fishermen of the lake fear the bite of the mud-fish. When this fish burrows into the mud, the mouth of the flask-like cavity which surrounds it is closed by a lid perforated by a small aperture. The margins of this aperture are pushed inwards so as to form a funnel for insertion between the lips of the fish. Boulanger, who has written an interesting account of the mud-fish, in states that it is possible to ascertain its condition, when enveloped in the clod of earth, by passing a straw (brin-de-2)aille) down the funnel to the mouth of the fish ; if alive, it immediately utters a cry which is Burrow. Funnel. Mouth. Tail. Cocoon. Pectoral liniK Esrtli. Lepidosiren, the mud or lung fish, in its cocoon embedded in mud. (After Newton Parker.) produced by the expiration of air from its lungs. When the clods are softened out care must be taken that the water does not enter the funnel or the fish would be suffocated. in THE VICTORIA NYANZA 39 In West Africa the negroes search diligently for the fish in its encysted state, and they are particularly fond of it and can keep it as a provision in the clod which envelops it. The Papyrus is a beautiful rush with a long green stem sometimes twenty feet high, which is not com- pletely circular. The stems are crowned with tufts of delicate filaments, which were used by the ancient Egyptians to make garlands for the shrines of the gods. A Raft made of the dried Papyrus Stems. Used by the Kavirondos on the Victoria Nyanza. The leaves are apple-green. The pith used for making writing material by the ancient Egyptians earned for this plant the name of " paper reed," it occupies that portion of the stem which lies beneath the surface of the water. The papyrus flourishes in the swamps of Uganda, around the shallow margins of the Victoria Nyanza and in the White Nile, but it is extinct in Lower Egypt, 40 EASTERN ETHIOPIA m The thick stem of the papyrus is useful to the natives for making rafts and canoes. The Kavirondo fisher- men on the Victoria Nyanza use the stems for making seines, and the leaves they weave into baskets. The old Egyptians used the papyrus stems for making rafts, and in the wall sculptures men are represented constructing such rafts. It is probable that the little ark of bulrushes daubed with " slime and with pitch," which sheltered the infant Moses in " the flags by the river's brink" (Ex. ii. 3), was made of papyrus stalks. IV THE ARCHIPELAGOES AND ISLANDS OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA THE Victoria Nyanza abounds in islands ; some are mere rocks sticking out of the water, and serve as basking places for crocodiles ; others are of large size, thickly wooded, presenting high hills and verdant dales. .Many of the islands have played an important part in the political and religious history of Uganda. Readers interested in the religious war which took place in Mwanga's reign should master the geography of the Lake Islands.1 The most important are Ukerewe in the south ; Buvuma, Bulinguge, and Konie in the north ; and the Sesse Archipelago in the north-west angle of the lake. Ukerewe, twenty-five miles long with a maximum breadth of twelve miles, lies within the German sphere of interest, off the northern corner of Speke Gulf. This island is fertile ; the central parts, rising to a height of 650 feet above the lake, are covered by an impenetrable primeval forest capable of supplying useful timber. The Wa-Kerewe cultivate the soil and grow bananas, maize, sweet potatoes, sorghum, tobacco, gourds, and rice. Their domestic animals are humped oxen, goats, and sheep. They fish with weir baskets, and hook and line ; and catch the hippopotamus with the harpoon. The islanders are very superstitious and believe in evil spirits. " At the door of the hut they often hang a great iron bell, against which the head strikes in 1 The spelling adopted is the same as that found on the map of the lake constructed by Commander Whitehouse and issued by the War Office, 1910. 4J EASTERN ETHIOPIA IV opening, and which indeed is placed there for the pur- pose, for exil spirits are said to strike themselves against the bell when entering the hut and are thus scared away." (Kollmann.) Smith and O'Neill, two of the early Christian missionaries who went to Uganda (1877) in response to iv ISLANDS OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA 43 Stanley's appeal were shortly afterwards murdered on this island. Sesse was believed to be a single island until it was captured from the Roman Catholics by Major Williams (1892). After subduing Sesse Island this enterprising officer circumnavigated it, and found, instead of a large triangular island, as represented in maps, one large and many small islands, some being merely rocky islets. Their true configuration and dis- tribution was ascertained by Macdonald (1893). The natives of the Sesse Islands are known as Basesse. Although these islands lie in the north-west angle of the Victoria Nyanza and belong to Uganda, the people inhabiting them are more allied to the Basoga than to the Baganda. The Basesse are not only excellent boat builders, but they are skilful paddlers and experts in man- oeuvring their boats on the lakes, either singly or in fleets. During the contest between Christians and Mahomedans, the Basesse declared for Mwanga against the usurper Karema, and by placing their fleet of boats at his service gave him the mastery of the lake. Mwanga had his headquarters at these islands after his deposition in 1888. From Bulinguge (an island about one mile square in Murchison Bay) he harassed, with the help of the Christians, the Mahomedans during 1889 and could feed his force by means of the Sesse fleet. There was a time when the " Admiral of the Fleet " commanded a fleet of four hundred boats. Mwanga and the Roman Catholics retreated to Bulinguge after the battle of Mengo (1892). This island, which the Roman Catholics regarded as impreg- nable, was assaulted by the Protestants under Williams, but the King escaped by means of boats to Sesse. When the Protestant attack became successful the fugitives attempted to escape from the southern shores by means of their boats. The panic-stricken crowd 44 EASTERN ETHIOPIA iv tried to secure places in boats already overfull, and hundreds of them were drowned. On the island of Bubernbe, in the Sesse group, Mukasa, the great goddess of the Victoria Nyanza, had her temple, and some of the islands in this archipelago had less important gods. The priests of Mukasa had great power. It was believed that this goddess could prevent storms on the lake ; make rain ; draw a tooth ; or kill kings. Cunningham found, in a French record, that in the year 187.9 Mukasa " tied up " the lake for three months and would not allow anyone to touch its waters. At length King Mutesa was obliged to send an offering of a hundred slaves, a hundred women, a hundred cows, and a hundred goats to the temple, and Mukasa untied the lake. Sacrifices of goats and cows were made to the goddess at her temple on Bubembe. This island is about four miles long and two wide ; it is fertile, well-wooded, and picturesque. The temple has practically disappeared. This is not a matter for surprise, for such temples were merely built of mud and wood and thatched withgra.-s. Mukasa may be regarded as the Neptune of the lake, and the priests carried a paddle as an emblem of their office. This paddle they used as a walking-stick. Kome is eleven miles long and eight broad. The chief informed Cunningham of a curious custom which prevails on this island. If within the first year of married life a child is not born, the husband is under- stood to be at fault and the wife may make overtures to the husband's brother. When the intrigue is successful the husband is informed, and life assumes its normal features. The natives of this island cultivate bananas, beans, potatoes, coffee, Indian corn, and tobacco. The Sesse Archipelago forms a county of Uganda, and is represented in the Native Parliament. The Buvuma Group consists of seven islands near the north-east corner of the lake, adjacent to the coast iv ISLANDS OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA 45 of Busoga, near Napoleon Gulf. The three largest islands in this group are Buvuma, Bugaya, and Busiri. Buvuma, the largest of these islands, is of irregular shape and seems to be made up of peninsulas. It has an area of about 170 square miles and is larger than the Isle of Wight. It contains high hills in its central parts, some of which are 500 or 600 feet above the level of the lake. The hillsides are covered with forests, and there are grassy uplands which afford excellent pasture for cattle. Until devastated by the sleeping-sickness it contained a large population in many villages which were surrounded by excellent gardens and plantations. The natives, known as Wavuma, are excellent agriculturists, growing millet, maize, sweet potatoes, and bananas : the surplus grain they stored in granaries which resemble miniature huts. They are skilful fishermen and like the Basesse build excellent boats and are extremely expert in their use, take to the water from childhood and swim admirably. They make their own cord and ropes from fibre obtained from the aloe; and manufacture their own pottery. The Wavuma do not differ much in appearance from the Baganda, but for a century or more there existed a feud between them and the natives of Uganda. The Kings of Uganda have tried in vain to subdue the Wavuma : as they refused to accept Christianity and had been a thorn in the side of the Baganda, Mutesa resolved to subjugate the islands in 1875. At this time the relations between Uganda and Buvuma resembled those which prevailed in the time of Queen Elizabeth between the Empire of Spain and England. At this time H. M. Stanley was staying in Uganda and he has described the fighting force with which Mutesa attempted to conquer the Wavuma. It consisted of a fleet of 230 war boats, and an army estimated at 150,000 fighting men. The Wavuma had a fleet equal to the Baganda, but their warriors (slingers and spear- men) amounted to a fifth of Mutesa's force. The 46 EASTERN ETHIOPIA iv Uganda fleet was hopelessly beaten by the Wavuma, and Mutesa's warriors had no opportunity of landing on the island. For nearly twenty years after this great fight the Wavuma not only raided the adjacent coast of Usoga and carried off the Baganda women into captivity, but they carried on an intermittent slave trade with the Arabs in German territory, and blocked the short lake route between Kavirondo and Uganda. This brought them into conflict with the agents of the Imperial British East Africa Company. Captain Williams, the company's agent in Uganda, tried by peaceful negotiations to open the lake route, but without success. This led to the expedition of 1893. Assisted by Majors Macdonald and Smith, Williams raised a force consisting of 100 Soudanese, 2,000 Baganda guns, and 3,000 spearmen, supported by two Maxims for the purpose of capturing Buvuma. The fighting men were conveyed in two boats and 250 boats. The paddlers increased his number by 5,000 men and brought the total under his command to 10,000 men. The Baganda fleet set out from Murchison Bay, effected a landing and encamped on the island of Busiri, and a few days later it practically annihilated the fleet of the Wavuma. The great island of Buvuma was occcupied after a stubborn resistance on the part of the people. Some miles south of Buvuma is the island of Bugaya : its inhabitants were regarded as the bravest and most fearless of the Wavuma : after the conquest of Buvuma the Bagaya surrendered. It has been mentioned already that the Wavuma refused to accept Christianity or to have it thrust upon them, but preferred their old fetish (or Lubare) worship, which consisted in attempts to appease imaginary evil spirits by offerings of food and drink placed in little grass huts built outside the village or in the depths of the forest. IV ISLANDS OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA 47 Fetish huts are of two kinds. One consists of a hut constructed of dried grass surmounted by a tall spire ; the offering or charm (daua) is placed within the hut. A Fetish Hut made of Grass (Island of Buvuma). Offerings of food and drink are placed in such huts. This is the way the spirits are worshipped. These huts are placed outside villages ; often in the forest. The other kind is a hollow cone of grass shaped like an inverted funnel suspended from the bough of a tree, and overshadowing a hollow stone on the ground 48 EASTERN ETHIOPIA iv containing food, drink, or charms. The Wavuma are extremely superstitious, and whilst there is good reason to believe that much of their fetish worship is harmless, in some instances it was attended with disgusting acts of cruelty. The charms placed in these little fetish huts are chiefly scraps of bark, bits of iron ore found among the meadow, bundles of banana bast, and different kinds of dried berries. Many curious customs prevail among these people. The national dress for men is a robe made of bark cloth, but a woman's consists of a banana leaf. Cunningham points out the advantages of this simple attire : it is easily renewed, and always clean. In this respect the naked natives are angelic when compared with tribes which wear bark cloth from month to month and from year to year, without changing it. Un- fortunately bark cloth cannot be washed. A woman in Buvuma must not sit on a chair ; even when no men are present : she must sit on the floor. On some of the islands (Buvuma and Busiri) the incisors are removed, and the dentist who removes them receives a fee of two kauri shells. The removal of the teeth interferes with distinct pronunciation. The boats used by the Baganda and by the natives of the Buvuma and Sesse Islands are of great interest, for, though of peculiar construction, they have been brought to a state of perfection. The keel of the boat is formed from a tree trunk shaped externally with a hatchet and hollowed in- ternally, in part by burning and in part by hatchets : the keel is prolonged beyond the boat anteriorly in the form of a long sharp peak. The depth of the boat is increased by the addition of lateral planks about an inch thick. These the boat-builders hew from tree trunks : they have no saws : the planks are sewn to the tree forming the keel and to each other by means of wattle fibre, the holes for the threads being made in the planks with red, hot awls. Two tiers of planks are added to each keel- IV ISLANDS OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA 49 and where these planks meet to form the l»o\v and stern of the boat a triangular piece of wood is let in to tighten *« 1 them. One plank is not long enough to extend the entire length of the boat ; two or more may be needed. Where 5o EASTERN ETHIOPIA iv the edges of two planks overlap a narrow strip of wood is firmly fastened to make them watertight. A strong spar traverses the sides of the boat near the prow and projects on each side beyond the planks; this serves as a handle to enable the boat to be drawn ashore. The narrow seats are fastened into the boat in a peculiar manner. When the side planks are fashioned, semi- circular notches are made in corresponding parts of the adjacent planks which receive the ends of the seats. The seat has a rounded knob at each end ; this knob is received in the holes formed by the apposition of the semicircular notches in the planks and projects on the outer surface of the boat. When the seats are in position a line of knobs is seen in the line of junction formed by the union of the first and second row of planking. The seats, therefore, give firmness to the boat. In addition to the sharp beak formed by the keel a movable prow (the prow of peace) is added, and in order to make it firm, a strong cord passes from the prow to the bow of the boat : this line is usually hung with grass or fibre cut to a convenient length. The end of the prow is often surmounted with horns. When completed the boat is usually smeared with red Uganda clay. The boat is impelled by paddles about three feet long; the paddlers sit with their backs to the steersman, who turns the vessel in any desired direction by using his single paddle like a lever on the right or left side. When the lake is calm a boat containing twenty paddlers can be impelled at a quick rate and for a long time. The paddlers sing monotonous songs as they urge their boats through the waters of the lake. It is an interesting sight to watch such a boat in motion ; the rhythmic movements of the paddlers would do credit to any crew; the handles of the paddles simultaneously strike the sides of the planks and produce a loud knock. The centre of gravity lies far back in the boat, so that the fore part is well out of the water ; each is provided with a baler. IV ISLANDS OF THE VICTORIA NYAN'/A Some of the boats, especially those built for war purposes, accommodate a hundred paddlers. hi war- A Sesse Boat on the Victoria Xyanza. time the false prow is removed and its point serves for a ram. E 2 52 EASTERN ETHIOPIA iv No nails, screws, or metal of any kind is used in the construction of these boats ; neither the Baganda nor the Wavuma know anything of the use of sails, or saws. The skill and daring of the Basesse and Wavuma boatmen are proverbial. When Stanley circumnavigated the lake in 1875, he was often in peril from the Wavuma. He describes the voyage around the indented shores of Speke's Gulf and his visit to Ukerewe, where his guide had many friends. Some of the natives laughed at the novel method employed by his men in rowing, but when the sail was hoisted they fled in terror. The boat was frequently chased by hippopotamuses, and further along the coast it was pursued by war boats, blown about by severe gales, pelted by hailstones as large as filberts, and deluged with torrents of rain. The piratical craft of the Wavuma were so belligerent that one had to be sunk with bullets. When he approached Uganda he was received with a flotilla, greeted with volleys of musketry and the thunder of drums. On shore he was welcomed with flags and received in audience by Mutesa. On leaving Uganda, after a stay of many weeks, Stanley returned to his base at Speke's Gulf, and ran a narrow risk of being murdered by the inhabitants of a large island ten days' sail from Uganda. The dwellers by the lake believed wonderful stories of the Wavuma daring in the water, and credited them with the ability of swimming under water to hostile boats, and cutting with short knives the sutures which secured the planking. Great changes have come over these interesting Lake Islands. In 1901 the sleeping-sickness visited them and the adjacent shore districts, especially Uganda and Busoga. In 1908, Bishop Tucker, in describing the havoc wrought by this disease, stated that " the islands have been depopulated." Kome, which at one time was said to have a population of 10,000, has hardly 500 souls IV ISLANDS OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA 53 left. The fishermen on the lake shores have become an extinct race. South Busoga has suffered even more than Uganda. Nanyumba's country has been more than decimated, whilst Wakoli's, formerly the very garden of Busoga, is now a " howling wilderness." At the time of my visit (1910) the last act, so far as the islands are concerned, had been performed. The few people living on the great island of Buvuma had Harpoons used by Natives for Catching the Hippopotamus. A. This fragment of harpoon was found in the body of a hippopotamus shot in Rhodesia firmly encysted in the animal's subcutaneous tissue. B. Harpoon and float as used on the Victoria Nyanza. (British Museum.) been removed to the mainland and isolated in a sanita- tion camp. Similar measures had been carried out in the islands of the Sesse Archipelago. To-day there is no fishing carried on in the northern waters of the lake, and on these islands crocodiles and tsetse-flies reign supreme. 54 EASTERN ETHIOPIA iv Many of the large rivers and lakes of the Ethiopian Region are inhabited by the hippopotamus. This huge pig is the largest mammal which lives in fresh water, as the sperm whale is the biggest mammal known to live in salt water. It is by no means difficult to shoot, and this form of sport is as devoid of danger as pigeon shooting. The natives endeavour to hunt the hippopotamus with the harpoon. The method appears to be this :— The harpoon is a piece of barbed iron with a cord and wooden float attached. The line traverses a hollow handle made of bamboo several feet long. When ready for use, the harpoon is drawn up to the end of the hollow handle by means of the line attached to it. The wily native conceals himself along the track used by the hippopotamus, and as the animal passes it receives a forcible thrust which fixes the harpoon in the thick hide. The wounded beast rushes into the water, but the hollow handle is retained in the hands of the hunter, and the line runs along it ; the float attached to it indicates the position of the animal, which immediately seeks refuge in deep water. The second part of the hunt is performed in the water. The hunters -go out in boats, and, on finding the float, await the harpooned beast as it rises from the depths. When the hippopotamus comes to the surface and opens his enormous mouth to seize the boat and overturn it, the hunters inflict serious damage, especially on the animal's nose, with their spears. In this way, as the result of repeated attacks, the animal succumbs, and forms the material for a native debauch. It does not necessarily follow when a hunter implants a harpoon into a hippopotamus that he secures the object of his ambition. The line may break, and the iron which enters the animal's body may fail to entail its destruction. I have had an opportunity of examining an iron harpoon, removed from the body of a hippopotamus, which had been thrust into its IV ISLANDS OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA 55 hide a long period before it was shot by Mr. Long in Rhodesia. It seems as if the iron ring which held the rope had broken off. The harpoon was found deeply embedded in the subcutaneous tissues, whilst the animal was being skinned. This is an interesting specimen, because it shows that the hippopotamus is hunted with the harpoon in Central, as well as in East Africa and Uganda. Old and Young. The hippopotamus is a menace to the natives in their boats and canoes. UGANDA UGANDA is the most northerly as well as the most powerful negro kingdom on the Victoria Nyanza. It is governed by a Kabaka (or King) assisted by a Prime Minister, a Parliament, a Chief Justice, and a Treasurer. Kampala is the headquarters of the administration. In 1894 a British Protectorate was proclaimed over the territory of Uganda, which included only the country subject to King Mwanga : this protectorate has since been extended by the additions of territories bordering Uganda and known as Usoga, Unyoro, Ankole, Buddu, and Koko. The official capital and head- quarters is Entebbe, situated on the shores of Victoria Nyanza at Murchison Bay. Entebbe, the principal port of Uganda, is in direct communication with the East Africa Protectorate by steamboats which run across the lake to Port Florence on Kavirondo Gulf. Stanley's visit to Mutesa (1875) was fraught with important consequences, as it led to the introduction of Christianity into the country. This notorious, cruel, and bloodthirsty king, anxious to find a more satis- factory religion than fetishism and ancestor- worship, was initiated into the principles of the Christian Religion by Stanley. This was followed by the advent of mission- aries, an event which led to many complications, for in religious matters Mutesa proved to be as fickle as he 56 v UGANDA 57 was cruel. The Arabs who were settled in the country as ivory merchants had introduced Mali ornedan ism, and the religious question was complicated by the Roman Catholics who founded the Mission of the White Fathers. Eventually the Protestant and Roman Catholic sections of the Church found themselves, not only in rivalry, but in actual strife. Mutesa (or M'tesa as his name is often written) died in 1884 : he remained a pagan to the end in spite of the proselytising efforts of Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Mahomedans. He was succeeded by his son Mwanga, a violent and vicious man, who soon came into collision with the religious factions. For this there was some excuse, as the religious bodies were quarrelling with each other, and each trying to impose its religion on the Kabaka. Cunningham neatly ex- presses the position in this way : — " The Arabs dosed him with Mahomedanism, the White Fathers dosed him with Catholicity, and the English missionaries dosed him with Protestantism." Mwanga cruelly persecuted the Christians and Mahomedans. His corrupt and vicious ways led to his deposition in 1888, and he died an exile in the Seychelles, 1893. It is a fact of some importance in connection with the religious struggles which took place in Uganda from 1884 to 1898, that the natives are not circumcised unless they become Mahomedans : they have a great dislike to this rite, and this may have had some influence in preventing the spread of Mahomedanism. When the Mahomedans for a time obtained the upper hand in Uganda, they wished to make Kiwewa, the eldest brother of Mwanga, Kabaka, and attempted to force on him the rite of circumcision, but he refused, and killed some of the high functionaries who had come to his enclosure for the purpose of performing the rite. 58 EASTERN ETHIOPIA v The Baganda are now almost completely converted to Christianity either in its Protestant or Roman Catholic form. Some are Mahomedans. In the revengeful religious wars which took place in Uganda during the reign of Mwanga the zeal of the converted natives was .•"•* O similar to that of English Protestants in Mary's reign, and " it carried many Baganda to martyrdom." The natives of Uganda are known as Baganda, hut one of the race would be called M Uganda ; the language is known as Kiganda. It is important to keep these rules in mind. For example the islanders of Bavuma are the Wavuma, those of Sesse islands, Basesse ; and the inhabitants of the great island of Ukerewe, Wakerewe. In the same way, in the East Africa Protectorate, Wakikuyu signifies the natives of Kikuyu, and the Wakamba live in the district of Ukamba. The Baganda differ in many ways from ordinary Africans. Their faces are very black, but they have a mild and inoffensive appearance. They are clothed with garments made of bark cloth, but many native Christians, men and women, wear a long white calico garment, not unlike a nightgown, called a kansu, and wear sandals of stiff ox-hide made to fit the feet. The Baganda live in comfortable houses built of wood and dried grass : the interior of such houses is divided into suitable apartments for the members of the families who use them. They cultivate beans, sugar-cane, sweet potatoes, coffee, and bananas ; the coffee is not drunk as a decoction, but the berries are eaten. Though possessing cattle the Baganda live mainly on bananas, which grow luxuriantly in Uganda and on fish from the lake which are caught in weir baskets. These people make earthenware vessels, pipes, spoons, musical instruments, such as guitars and especially drums, spears, shields, and various things which they v UGANDA 59 use as charms to ward off evil spirits. Necklaces and bracelets are worn in a becoming manner and these people do not circumcise, nor disfigure their bodies by keloid scars. They do not file or knock out the incisor irt'th, nor work the hair into grotesque or fantastic shapes. It is an extraordinary change to pass from the Province of Kisumu, where the Kavirondo men and women walk about more naked than our apple-loving parents in the Garden of Eden, and enter Uganda, where the natives exhibit the most scrupulous regard for outward decency. This astonished Speke, for he tells us in his account of Uganda (1863) that Mutesa inflicted a heavy fine on courtiers who exposed their legs in his presence, but he was not so particular in regard to women. His valets were young women who used to walk about the palace naked like the Kavirondo girls. When Speke entered Uganda his donkey was regarded as indecent without trousers. It is noteworthy that a negro people so punctilious in outward decency especially in regard to clothes, and strictly covering the body from neck to ankle, should be considered among the most immoral of the African races. The word Baganda is almost synonymous with sensuality, debauchery, and drunkenness. In Uganda, syphilis is almost universal. This terrible opinion is supported by reliable medical men and the testimony of bishops. Sir Harry Johnston states on the authority of Mon- si^neur Streicher that in Mutesa's reign the population of the Kingdom of Uganda approached 4,000,000. In 1901 it was estimated at little more than 1,000,000. This decrease is partly due to the massacres which took place between 1860 and 1898, especially under Mutesa and M \\nnga. Human life had little value in Mutesa's court. Speke gave this Kabaka some firearms and at his request shot 60 EASTERN ETHIOPIA v four cows with a revolving pistol. Mutesa then handed a carbine full-cock to a page and told him to shoot a man in the outer court. On the return of the page he asked, " Did you do it well ? " " Oh yes, capitally," said the boy. Infant mortality is very great among the natives — it is rare to find a woman with more than one child : they have little love for their children. The Baganda learn arithmetic with great facility ; a lady missionary was very proud that one woman in her class had shown exceptional ability and could work out vulgar fractions. The missionary then stated that this woman had a sick child, and as it showed no signs of improving, and as nursing interfered with her arithmetic, she left the little child in the forest at night for the hyaenas. Uganda is not much troubled with lions, but leopards are often a nuisance. Shortly before our visit, some of the villages had been worried by a man-eating leopard. A native party was organised to kill this animal. Nine of the party were badly mauled by the leopard and four of them subsequently died from their wounds. Leopards are sometimes very bold, and have been known to seize and make off with patients in the sleeping-sickness camps. A Government official was having a shauri with a party of natives in Naudi : they were sitting round an ant-hill when suddenly a hare chased by a leopard appeared and dodged about among the men. A timely and well-placed bullet cut short his career. All who have visited Uganda are unanimous in regard to the fertility of the soil. The valleys are moist with frequent showers which render them extremely favour- able for the cultivation of bananas. The mists and rains which are so beneficial are probably due to the regular south wind which blows across the lake and carries the watery vapour with it, to fall on the verdant hills along its northern shores. The amount of watery UGANDA 61 vapour which arises from the lake by evaporation must be enormous, especially when we remember that the lake has a superficial area of 27,500 square miles lying under the equator. The Banana (M lisa). A. The flower cone. A banana plantation is as typical of Uganda as a wheat-field is of England and a potato-field of Ireland. As Uganda enjoys an abundant rainfall it is easy to understand that the valleys between the hills may be luxuriant forests, marshes, or papyrus swamps with millions of gnats. 62 The Banana (Musa), a gigantic herbaceous plant, common in the tropical parts of the East, is cultivated in all tropical and subtropical countries. It grows wild in Uganda, but among the cultivated plants it is estimated that there are more than thirty varieties. A banana plantation is as typical of Uganda as a wheat- field is of an English county, or a potato-field of Ireland. The banana is a curious plant : it forms a spurious stem by the sheathing bases of the leaves. Such a stem may rise fifteen or twenty feet in height. Some of the leaves are ten feet in length and two feet across the blade. These large fan-like leaves are often of a delicate green and move with every breath of wind ; indeed a banana plantation is a feast of colour. The banana is propagated by young shoots which arise from its roots. The old stem dies down after flowering and fruiting, and a new stem from the old root takes its place. The flower is of interest, for it consists of a conical bulb of purple spathes. The poorly developed petals and reproductive parts are covered by a huge purple spathe which surmounts the stalk. When the fruit forms, the stalk becomes top- heavy and doubles on itself. Dr. Cook found these spathes very useful. The Baganda love physic, but it was difficult to persuade the patients at the Missionary Hospital to take the stuff in definite quantities at regular hours ; they preferred to drink it wholesale. Graduated medicine glasses could not be supplied, but the deficiency is not felt because the spathe of a banana is shaped like a spoon, and its concavity holds for practical purposes one ounce of fluid, and thus fulfils the function of a medicine glass. When a native goes out in the rain he takes off' his clothes, carries them under his arm and uses a banana leaf as an umbrella. Bark cloth, as clothing, is soon ruined by rain. Women sometimes wrap a baby in a v UGANDA 63 banana leaf. Good fibre is obtained from these leaves, for ropemaking. The fruit of the banana after fer- M Uganda with two Banana Leaves. 64 EASTERN ETHIOPIA v mentation furnishes a sweet and intoxicating beer. When, in consequence of drought, the banana crop fails, the Baganda are reduced to a state of famine. Dried banana leaves are emblems of mourning. When Kino- Mutesa died the whole country went into mourn- ing, °and everyone allowed the hair to grow. (Ashe.) Boy Collecting Termites. In Uganda, aa in other parts of Africa, termites (in their winged stage) are regarded as delicacies. Men were clothed in the national costume of bark cloth, knotted over the right shoulder, but girded as a sign of mourning with withered banana leaves, emblems of decay and death. The sweet potato is cultivated everywhere in East Africa from Zanzibar to Egypt (Grant). The tubers are favourite food with the natives. Guinea fowls and 65 antelopes are destructive to it. The plant once in the ground seems to be allowed to propagate itself without replanting from season to season. Locusts are eaten after the wings have been removed and the bodies roasted. Termites (white ants) are regarded in Uganda as in other parts of Africa as delicacies. In Uganda the people are divided into clans, and each clan is named after an animal, insect, fish, or The Scaly Ant-eater, or Manis (Mani* lrirttf>f>it). plant. Thus, a clan is named after a sheep, grass- hopper, crocodile, hippopotamus, serval cat, bean, mushroom, dog, &c. There is some reason for the choice of a particular animal or plant as the badge, totem, or sign of a clan, but its precise significance is ill-understood. No member of a clan may eat the 66 EASTERN ETHIOPIA v animal or vegetable which is the totem or sign of that clan. For instance, the mud-fish (mamba) is the sign of the Mamba clan, but no member of that clan will eat, injure, or willingly destroy this fish. The Baganda make their own pottery. There are several varieties of clay, red, kaolin or white, and black. The blackness of the vessels made from black clay is intensified by a glaze made from graphite which occurs in Uganda. Some of the pottery is artistic, and good examples of vases glazed with plumbago may be seen in the British Museum. They also weave baskets and mats, and are skilful in utilising the various long grasses which grow in the marshes. The thatchers are a separate guild. They are especially clever in covering the outer walls of porches and the woodwork of veran- dahs with the long polished stalks of elephant grass packed closely together in an upright position and bound with string. It is a remarkable fact that the Baganda, the foremost negro race in Africa, have no knowledge of the plough, the saw, sails, or of wheeled vehicles ; neither have they done anything to tame or domesticate animals, but they are fond of dogs. A curious kind of ant-eater known as the Man is is found in Uganda. From head to tail it is covered with scales, so that this animal has the appearance of a huge fir-cone, and like a hedge-hog it can roll itself up like a ball and expose a hard smooth surface to its enemies. It is said that the Man is can contract its scales on its body, so that if a monkey's finger or a dog's nose is placed beneath a scale either would be badly nipped. This animal lives entirely on ants and termites : it has a tubular mouth, a long tongue, and no teeth. The walls of the stomach are much thickened, arid like birds it swallows small pebbles to assist in grinding its food. The Manis lives on trees ; sometimes when climbing a tree it may descry an enemy, it will then fling its body backwards and remain immobile, with its tail firmly v UGANDA 67 pressed against the tree trunk. In this attitude the animal resembles the trunk end of a broken branch. The animal is represented in this position in the excellent stuffed group representing scaly ant-eaters or Pangolins in the Natural History Museum, London. A Fetish Hut or Spirit-shelter. At night the piece of pottery serves for a door. F 2 VI KAMPALA (MENGO), THE NATIVE CAPITAL OF UGANDA KAMPALA is u picturesque town about twenty-three miles from Entebbe and seven miles from Port Kam- pala (Munyonyo) on the Victoria Nyanza. The town occupies the summits of seven hills, and has been called in consequence, by the missionaries, Zion. The names of the seven hills are : Mengo, Mutesa, Rubaga, Nasambya, Kasubi, Nakasero, and Namirembe. Each hill is the headquarters of a separate community. Mengo is occupied by the residence of the Kabaka (King), his court and followers. Three of the hills are occupied by religious communities. Rubago has on its summit the Roman Catholic Mission, known as the White Fathers (French). Nasambaya is occupied by the buildings of the English Roman Catholic Mission (St. Joseph's). Namirembe, " the hill of peace," the highest of the seven, has the schools and the admirable native hospital belonging to the Church Missionary Society. At the time of our visit it was surmounted by the Uganda Cathedral. This remarkable edifice was struck by lightning and destroyed, September 1910. Nakasero is devoted to military and civil officials. We approached Kampala from Entebbe travelling in a transport motor-car along an excellent road twenty- three miles long. The journey was particularly interest- ing ; the earth was of the same brick-red material as has already been described in connection with the railway journey from Mombasa, and tall ant-hills were very frequent in the plantations bordering the roadway. M VI KAMPALA (MENGO) 69 In the cultivated patches by the side of the road sweet potatoes were growing, and in several places young rubber trees had l>cen planted and appeared to be An Ant-hill in Uganda. It is surrounded by tobacco plants. flourishing. In many parts of the journey the road was bordered by banana plantations ; the huge green leaves of the bananas were waving like fans in the breeze ; groves filled \\ith palms and bordered with tall 7° EASTERN ETHIOPIA vi tufts of elephant grass made us fancy that we were passing through the Palm house at Kew. Suddenly the road traversed a stretch of equatorial forest filled with large trees, in all stages of growth and decay, supporting parasitic trailing plants and lianas. Some of the trees thoroughly invested by thin, pendant, trailing plants resembled a confirmation girl in nun's veiling. These thick groves and corners of forests contain a great variety of birds, and as they flew from one grove to another I was able to recognise some of them. Not the least remarkable were the huge black and white hornbills ; these birds seemed to think it a hardship that they should be expected to fly. The bee-eaters, sun -birds, parrots, and rollers filled the scene with life, glory, and beauty. In some of the forest patches monkeys are seen in troops, especially the colobus, playing among the trees or sunning themselves in the tops of dead trees, or sliding down the lianas and landolphias like children in a gymnasium. As we emerged from the forest, palms, bananas, sweet potatoes, and rubber trees again came into view with native huts built of mud and thatched with grass : black-skinned children gnawing at bananas or a piece of sugar-cane watched the passage of the car. We rode up and down the hills of this switchback road until we caught a glimpse of the Uganda Cathedral on the top of Namirembe hill, and in a short time we entered Kampala. It was a beautiful approach to a remarkable town. When we visit Rome with its almost continuous lines of houses and well-kept streets we do not notice the inconvenience of ascending and descending the slopes of one or other of its seven hills, when we pass from part of the town to another. In Kampala the isolation of the various institutions from one another in consequence of being perched on a hill is inconvenient, especially as the only means of conveyance is the vi KAMPALA (MENGO) 71 jinricksha. The districts around the bases of the hills of Kampala are occupied with plantations, and the residences of the white officials are surrounded with ample gardens, or compounds, filled with tropical trees, flowers, and fruits. In walking among these gardens I started a female bushbuck eating cabbages in the O O kitchen garden ; in another two crowned cranes were performing the dance for which they are so celebrated ; I also started a heron, and in the verandah there was a pretty serval cat chained up by the collar like a dog, quite tame, eager and willing to receive caresses. Our hostess, Mrs. Baker, had a young genet as a pet, and a chameleon. Genet kittens are very pretty and great favourites with men and women. While we amused ourselves in catching flies for the chameleon an inter- esting question arose concerning its mode of reproduc- tion. I maintained that the chameleon laid eggs, and was immediately faced with the following statement :— A lady friend made her a present of a chameleon, which was at once placed on the wire-work blind in the lower half of the window ; an hour later, three young, clay- coloured chameleons were clinging to the wire blind and there were no signs of eggs or shells. There is no real difficulty, for one species C. pumilus is viviparous, and this proved to be the species under discussion. It is noteworthy that the young chameleons were active very quickly after birth, and one of them caught a fly within the first three hours. \Ve often amused ourselves with finding chameleons and attempting to photograph the tongue when ejected at a fly. The protrusion of this long elastic organ is a deliberate and, on the whole, a slow action. When the process is watched it is easy to see when a chameleon intends to secure a fly ; whilst it is carefully focussing the insect, its cheeks swell out and the end of the tongue protrudes slightly from the mouth and is then quickly ejected at the fly, and, if the insect be secured, the tongue is quickly and easily drawn back into the mouth, 72 EASTERN ETHIOPIA vi Flies are often secured when held six inches from the chameleon's mouth ; it seems to aim at the fly with much more certainty at six inches than at four. Any- one who has carefully watched chameleons will agree with Gadow that the tongue works best when shot out with full force. When a chameleon ejects its tongue at a fly and misses it, the reptile appears to have more difficulty in withdrawing the organ into the mouth than when the fly is hit and secured. When the object is missed the tongue hangs about like the loose end of a rope. Protusion and retraction of the tongue, even when performed vigorously, are actions sufficiently deliberate to permit a photograph to be obtained of the act. The chameleon even in its own natural surround- ings occasionally misses a fly although the tongue may be aimed with apparent care. The variation in the colour of the chameleon's skin was another source of interest to us. Although the movements of a chameleon seem very slow when care- fully watched yet left to itself for a few minutes the reptile generally escaped, and its power of altering the colour of its skin to the environment soon taught us the hopelessness of even a rigorous search. It is diffi- cult to detect chameleons among the branches of trees unless the reptiles move. The skin of the chameleon is covered with granules. These reptiles can hold very tightly by means of their awkward-looking feet " with triple claw disjoined." They are also aided in maintaining a secure position by means of their tails. The following observation related by Selous bears on this fact : — he saw a small owl sitting on a bare patch of ground under a thorn tree. The bird did not move until he was quite close to it. The owl flew two or three yards and something could be seen attached to its leg. He caught the owl and found that a large chameleon had attached itself to the bird's leg by twisting its tail round it two or three times, VI CHAMELEONS 73 The eyes of chameleons are curious, for each can act independently of the other ; one can be directed forwards whilst its fellow is looking backwards. The prominent eye is covered with a circular lid pierced by a small hole. Stranger animal, Sure never lived beneath the sun ; A lizard's body lean and long, A fish's head, a serpent's tongue. Its foot with triple claw disjoined ; And what a length of tail behind. ./'inn* , 1720-69, 74 EASTERN ETHIOPIA VI It is worth remembering that according to Mosaic lu\v chameleons are included among the creeping things Mutesa's Tomb. Mutesa's Grave "behind the fence of spears." (From Bishop Tucker's Eighteen Years in Uganda.) vi KAMPALA (MENGO) 75 unclean and therefore uneatable. They are classed with the weasel, ferret, mouse, tortoise, snail, lizard, and mole (Lev. xi. 29, 30). The Tomb of Mutesa. — This conspicuous building ' surmounts one of the hills of Kampala. It is cone- shaped, built of timber and reeds, and thickly thatched with grass. It has one door and no windows, so that the interior of the tomb is weird and mysterious. Two rows of poles make a sort of aisle which is strewn with grass, and a fence of spears protects the grave, which is covered with bark cloth. There is a Uganda shield at each end of the row of spears. A large sheet of bark cloth consisting of white and dark squares arranged in chequer or draught board pattern forms the background of this sombre chamber of the dead. In connection with the tomb a complete household is maintained as though the Kabaka was alive. These O keep a perpetual vigil in the deep shadows of the tomb and are not allowed to come out. In savage Africa monuments to powerful chiefs are rare. Among most tribes death means annihilation and a man is forgotten unless he has children. It is, however, a curious fact that the names of tyrants go down to posterity more surely, and leave a more vivid impression, than rulers famous for good deeds. Herod's dreadful Massacre of the Innocents is known to a multitude of men and women, whereas few know much of the good qualities of the Emperor Hadrian. All visitors to Paris are reminded, in many districts of that famous and artistic city, of the destructive ability of Napoleon Bonaparte. Tourists in Moscow are not allowed to forget the atrocities of Ivan the Terrible. In Kampala the name of Mutesa survives though in the main it is a byword for cruelties and atrocities of the vilest kind which earned for him the title " causer of tears." Most writers on Uganda, in referring to the cruelties of Mutesa and his successor Mwanga, state that the details are too harrowing to publish. Severe VI 76 EASTERN ETHIOPIA bodily punishments were inflicted on frivolous pretexts. Cunningham refers to a poor wretch he had seen, whose ears had been cut off because his goat, in passing along a path, nibbled a blade of grass on the King's land. The present Katikiro or Prime Minister of Uganda wrote an account of the Kings (Bakabaka) of Uganda; he states that at frequent intervals Mutesa proclaimed sacrifices, and the royal harem was rifled for victims, who were duly slaughtered, with many others. When Mutesa died the whole country mourned for him, a Kingr whose conduct was so atrocious as to excite O horror in a country like Africa where " Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" does not excite astonishment. For instance, when Livingstone visited the native ruler of Lunda in 1867, he found the court of the palace decorated with men's skulls, and a great portion of the people had cropped ears and lopped-oft* arms, which served to remind the subjects of these mutilations that the ruler had been obliged to give expression to his disapproval of their conduct. (Erode.) THE UGANDA CATHEDRAL It has been mentioned that the most conspicuous edifice in Kampala, the Cathedral on the summit of Namirembe hill, was struck by lightning and reduced to ashes a few months after our visit. Probably no other place of Christian worship in the world was like unto it. This cathedral rested on a foundation of burnt bricks, but those used in the construction of the walls were sun-dried. The wooden roof was supported by two rows of octagonal columns built of unburnt bricks, and thatched with dried grass. The beams which supported the roof were overlaid with polished stalks of elephant grass which caused the interior of the cathedral to be filled with a pale yellow light, producing an unusual and pleasant impression. VI KAMPALA (MENGO) 77 The walls were pierced with long narrow windows with wire netting instead of glass to exclude bats. o The netting became a necessity because the bats hung from the roof in crowds, and a dead one occasionally EASTERN ETHIOPIA VI fell on the native worshippers squatting on the cemented floor. The interior of the cathedral consisted of a nave and two side aisles, a chancel, transept and vestibule. There VI KAMPALA (MENGO) 79 were two entrances, one at each end of the transept. This cathedral accommodated four thousand persons. It had neither belfry nor bell-tower, but a drummery St. Paul's Cathedral, Uganda, had no belfry. The worshippers were reminded of their duty by drums. The drummery is a detached building constructed of wood and dried grass. —a detached building constructed mainly of grass — containing three drums : a major, minor, and minimus ; these were beaten to summon the Baganda to the services instead of bells. 8o EASTERN ETHIOPIA vi The gateway of the cathedral precincts is con- structed of sun-dried bricks roofed with elephant grass, and the columns supporting the corners of the roof are the untrimmed stems of palm trees. This unique cathedral was designed by Mr. Borup to replace the older building, which was in an unsafe condition. The new cathedral, built by native labour, was begun in 1901. The Knbaka laid the foundation stone (June 18, 1901), and it was consecrated June 21, 1904. The interest evinced by the Baganda in its construction was great and practical. The members of the congregation carried the clay up the hill from the swamps to the brickmakers, and women gathered The raven which Bishop Hannington taught to tell the people of Hurstpierpoint to "go and sign the pledge. " This bird survived its preceptor seventeen years in the care of Dr. Hawken. the wood and material required for burning the bricks. The beams were conveyed from long distances by men. Occasionally the Katikiro (Prime Minister) would join the procession and carry a load of clay. (Tucker.) A plot of ground immediately under the shadow of the apse of the cathedral is reserved as a burying ground. It contains the remains of Bishop Hannington, who was murdered by the natives in 1885 at or near Lubu in Usogo by the orders of the superstitious Mwanga. After the murder the bishop's body was interred near the scene of the massacre at Mumias ; it was recovered by Bishop Tucker during his second journey to Uganda vi KAMPALA (MENGO) 81 in 1892, and re-interred with great solemnity at Kampala. Mwanga, who was responsible for the murder, attended the second burial, December 31, 1902. Captain Raymond Portal is also buried here, and the officers Thruston, Wilson, and Scott, who were murdered by the Soudanese mutineers in cold blood, 1897. The view from the summit of the hill on which the cathedral stands is very fine. From the west end may be seen the tomb of Mntesa, and the hill on which Stanley was encamped in 1875. The path- way, or track, leading from Stanley's camping ground to Mutesa's residence is pointed out to visitors. The road leading from the cathedral passes the large native hospital in which Drs. J. H. Cook and A. R. Cook carry out their admirable medical work among the Baganda. The institution is fitted with most of the requirements of modern surgery. The organisation of the place is excellent, and testifies to the zeal and energy of the capable staff connected with it. A short distance from the hospital is the native market, and we were greatly amused with the quaint things offered for sale. Dried fish from the lake resembling sprats ; pieces of the paunch of a sheep carefully folded up with a small piece of soft fat. It \\as a matter of surprise to see kaurie shells in heaps, but whether as a means of exchange, or on sale for ornamental purposes, I could not ascertain. Metallic ornaments for native use were abundant and betrayed their \Vestern origin, for some were made in Birmingham and others came from Germany. In the middle of the market-place we found a boy busily engaged in removing "jiggers" from the sole of an old man with a safety pin. The native boys are very expert in extracting these pests. Here we had excellent opportunities for studying bark-cloth, for the manufacture of this material is quite an art in Uganda. The bark is obtained from a species G 82 EASTERN ETHIOPIA vi of fig tree which flourishes in this fertile country. The bast on the inner side of the bark is removed in strips six or ten feet in length. Red bast is preferred. The strip, which varies in width according to the circum- ference of the tree, is soaked in water until it is a soft mass ; it is then beaten with a wooden mallet to uniform thickness and dried. The strips are sewn together with extreme neatness to any desired size. The bark- cloth is often variegated by bold stencilled designs, sometimes in grotesque patterns, by means of a black dye. It is the correct thing in Uganda for princesses and the wives of the chiefs to wear bark-cloth in preference to calico. Bark-cloth makes a useful material for binding writing books and blotters. Whilst at Kampala" we had an opportunity of visiting H.H. the Kabaka, a youth of fourteen years, the son of Mwanga by a Protestant wife. He was born August 1, 1896, and christened Daudi (David). The Kabaka is a well-grown and dignified youth, somewhat shy, but has a pleasant face and answers questions without reserve ; he is fond of dogs, mechanical toys, bicycles, and motor cars. Mr. Sturrock, the clever tutor, informed me that the Kabaka is fond of reading, especially historical books and those relating to animals. Kipling's Jungle Book has for him a peculiar fascina- tion. The signature appended shows that he writes English characters as neatly as any boy of a corresponding age in a public school. H.H. the Kabaka of Uganda receives from the British Government £800 yearly, and on attaining majority this will be increased to £1,500, and he will be entitled to a salute of guns. He became Kabaka. August 14, 1897, under a regency. ^ ^ Facsimile of the autograph of the Kabaka of Uganda. VII DRUMS No account of a visit to East Africa, and particularly Uganda, would be complete without some reference to drums. In Uganda a musical band sometimes consists entirely of drums. They take the place of church bells in European cities, and, like bells, they are used for ceremonial purposes on such occasions as weddings, funerals, and religious services ; at times of national rejoicing, as well as to sound alarms. In the Sesse Archipelago they are used for signalling purposes between the islands : a special drum is beaten on Koine to announce the birth of twins, and a select drum is used on the appearance of the new moon. Drums were introduced into the British army in the sixteenth century, and used for giving signals in times of peace and war. The principle underlying the construction of a drum is the same in all countries, and in all ages. A drum is composed of a cylinder which may be of wood, bamboo, or metal, covered at each end with vellum, parchment, or prepared skin, the tension of which is regulated by strings. The sound is produced by percussion, usually by beating on the parchment or skin-covered ends with appropriate drum-sticks, or by means of the fingers or the palm. Much ingenuity is shown in making drums, and great skill is often displayed in percussing them. There is great variety in the shape and size of drums. The Uganda drum consists of a hollow truncated cone G 2 EASTERN ETHIOPIA VII of wood with a piece of ox-hide stretched over its ends. These two pieces of hide are connected by cords made from banana fibre, which serve to keep them tense. The disposition of the cords produces a decorative effect enhanced by staining. Some of the drums are of enormous size. I have seen one a yard and a half The Uganda drum consists of a hollow, truncated cone of wood with a piece of ox-hide stretched over each end. The pieces of hide are con- nected by cords made from banana fibre which keep them tense. The cords are sometimes stained to produce a decorative effect. high and nearly a yard in width at the broad end. The conical-shaped drum stands on its narrow end and is beaten on the broad end. Large war drums are held extremely sacred, and the loss of one is as much taken to heart by an African Sultan as the loss of a flag by ourselves. VII DRUMS When Speke visited King Rumanika at Karague, he found thirty-five drums ranged on the ground, with as many drummers ranged behind them. The thirty- five drums all struck up together in very good harmony ; and when their deafening noise was over, a smaller band of hand-drums and reed instruments was ordered in to amuse him. \V»men Drummers at Sana's Tomb. (After Hattersley. The Baganda at Home.) In Uganda the State organisation is of a high order ; every principal chief has his own standard and drum call. When the King's war-drum sounds the call to arms in Mengo, each district passes the signal on. Thus the country is quickly aroused. Special beats of the drum are used for alarms, as when a wild animal, such as a lion, is discovered in a village. 86 EASTERN ETHIOPIA vn In Kampala, I was much impressed by the way sound travels from one hill-top to another. A native on the summit of one hill can converse without much difficulty with a native on a neighbouring hill, and in the calm of the evening the sound of the drum travels long distances. This makes it easy to believe that drums are used in these countries not only for issuing signals, but for conveying messages in code. In Uganda the drum is an appanage of royalty, alive or dead. Women drummers live in the tombs of the kings. The tomb of Suna, the father of Mutesa, contains some of his memorials, and the old women (his widows) live in the tomb and believe that so long as a certain part of him (umbilical cord) exists, the old lord and master is with them in spirit. When this relic is brought out all the old drummers and singers beat their drums and sing old chants, just as they used to do to welcome the approach of their master during his reign. (C. W. Hattersley.) Simple forms of drums are made by hollowing out a piece of the stem of a tree, a yard long and eight or nine inches in diameter : over the ends of these long cylinders a piece of skin from a large lizard is stretched : sometimes a piece of goat or antelope skin is used, but whatever the material, it is fastened over the end of the drum arid fixed to the wooden cylinder with pegs, or in some of the more elaborate drums, the skin is kept stretched by means of strips of leather. Long narrow drums of this kind are carried by means of a leather strap passing over one shoulder of the drummer. The drums are beaten by means of wooden sticks, or the end of the drum-stick is enveloped with bast or rags. The most complicated drum I have seen was shown me by Mr. Hobley, who obtained it from the Wa-Kamba. The drum-cylinder was from the stem of a large bamboo ; it measured two yards in length and six inches in diameter. At one end of the cylinder a piece VII DRUMS of wood is left as a handle : the opposite end is covered with, hide which is drawn into a cone by means of a piece of stout brass wire passing upwards through the hollow of the drum : near the handle this piece of wire is strained over a bridge of wood like a violin string and made taut on the outside, near the handle. O * In order to play the drum, it is held by the handle A Sesse Guitar. It is covered with python's skin. and the lower end is gently tapped upon the floor : an agreeable soft drumming noise is thus produced. The drum, or ngoma, is an indispensable accompani- ment to all native dances ; hence this word has come to signify a dance. In many instances the band consists entirely of drums, and before dancing begins the drummers tune their instruments to the same pitch 88 EASTERN ETHIOPIA VII so as not to " mar the dancers' skill." When a drum is not in tune, the drummer collects some grass and makes a small fire, over which he heats the hide until it becomes tense enough to furnish the proper An Ashantoe Fetish Drum. (British Museum.) note. When drums are played by hand, variations are produced by striking the stretched skin with the palm, the finger-tips, the knuckles, or the closed fist. The music and dancing usually last many hours, and in vn DRUMS 89 native villages situated near European settlements, it is the practice to permit dancing on Saturday night only. The natives have other kinds of musical instruments, such as flutes and guitars, but the drum furnishes the dance music. Some of the guitars are neatly made and the sound box is covered with thin skin, often that of the python. The men will often play monotonous tunes on such instruments for hours. These guitars are sometimes ornamented with the tail of a goat. I had heard that in some parts of Uganda a drum- covering is made from the e;ir of an elephant. My efforts to obtain or see such a drum were unfruitful. It is conceivable that the ear of the African elephant could be used for such a purpose, for some ears measure four feet across. There is a tract of country extending from the north-west corner of Tanganyika towards the main affluent of the Congo in that region known as the Manyema Country. Pure cannibalism is practised by the Manyema people. They eat their own dead. Thus a father would not eat his own son or daughter, neither would anyone of the same village, so the corpse is given to the natives in a neighbouring village. When anyone is very ill and likely to die, word is sent to the relations in the nearest village, and they await the signal to fetch away the body. The information of the death is generally conveyed by drum-signal. (Cunningham.) Drums also play a part in fetish-worship, and an extraordinary drum of this kind comes from Ashanti ; it is decorated with the thigh bones of human beings and the skull of a baboon. This drum was sounded at human sacrifices. Drums now serve better purposes in Uganda, for they are used to summon the worshippers to church. It is odd that pious people should require to be reminded of their religious duties by means of such discordant sounds as the doleful ringing of bells or the booming of drums. EASTERN ETHIOPIA VII It has been mentioned already that the term drum is usually restricted to sound-producing instruments in which a tense membrane, stretched across a hollow In Uganda drums are used instead of bells to call the congregations to worship. cylinder, is set in vibration by hand or stick. The peculiar booming of a drum can be produced without the aid of a stretched membrane. The Gordon College, Khartoum, possesses a specimen of the remarkable VII DRUMS drum used by the Niam-Niam. It is roughly shaped like an ox, with head and horns attached by a narrow neck to a thick body two feet in diameter, furnished with a tail and supported on four short, thick legs. The whole is cut out of one log. The part representing the body of the ox is as big as an ox and narrow towards the spine. The whole is hollowed out like a trough, with a narrow, slit-like mouth replacing the backbone. The sides of this drum are of unequal thickness and enable the drummer to produce two distinct sounds according to the side struck. The wood is extremely hard and resonant. Schweinfurth states that three important signals are rendered on these drums — one for war ; another for hunting, and the third a summons to a festival. The war signal sounded on the drum of a chief and repeated by other drums brings together thousands of armed men when necessary. War drum of the Niam-Niam. Captured 1905. (Gordon College, Khartoum.) VIII THE MASAI. THE SHEPHERD-WARRIORS OF MASAILAND. THE Masai inhabit the inland districts of British and German East Africa from the equator to 6° S.L. In spite of much research nothing is known of the origin of this race of men : they not only differ widely in lanfniao-e, customs, and organisation from the surround- O O " O ing tribes, but they are themselves divided into two sections : of these one is pastoral and nomadic, and the other (L-Oikop) agricultural. Both sections avoid the sea-coast and though lakes, like Naivasha and Nakuru, are found in the districts in which they live, they never use a boat or catch a fish. The males of the tribe are divided into boys, warriors, and elders. The stage of boyhood continues till the age of thirteen or seventeen ; then the boys, with much ceremony and mystery, are submitted in batches to circumcision. This operation among the Masai is a complicated procedure and occurs once in five years. Previous to circumcision a boy helps to herd the cattle but after this event he becomes a warrior or Elmuran (often erroneously spelt El Moran) ; he then plaits his hair, adorns himself with certain ear ornaments, and goes naked with the exception of a small skin which he wears over the shoulders for warmth, not for decency. His outfit as a warrior consists of a spear, shield, bow and arrows, a club and a sword. The shields are made of hide, but they are not all of one pattern : each age and sub-district has its own design. This is also true of the spears and arrows. The Masai rely for their n VIII THE MASAI 93 A Masai Warrior. 94 EASTERN ETHIOPIA VIII weapons and metal ornaments on smiths, usually Ndorobo. Each clan has its own smiths. The decorations of a warrior are very elaborate. He wears ear-rings, ear-studs, and an arm-clamp. When on the warpath he has a cap of ostrich feathers, or a head-dress made from the mane of a lion. On his leg there is an anklet formed from that part of the skin of the Colobus monkey which has long white hair, or the long hair of the goat. The boys shoot birds with bows An Arm-clamp which a Masai warrior wears, but only as an ornament. (British Museum. ) and arrows in order to obtain feathers and plumes for the decoration of the warriors. The manly dress that marks the warrior's pride — Two foes he slew before the raid was done, And in their blood his maiden spear was dyed. W. J. Monson. The arm-clamps worn by the Masai are of two kinds : — The one worn by warriors is only put on as an ornament. It is taken off when starting on a raid. The arm-ring, which is cut out of a buffalo horn or an vni THE MASAI 95 elephant's tusk, is only worn by elders who possess large herds of cattle and many children : it denotes the wearer's wealth. Examples of both kinds of clamp are shown in the British Museum. When a warrior attains the age of thirty years he marries and settles, and if a man of importance he may be elected chief. The life of a warrior is a tame affair now that this tribe is under British control. Raiding, cattle stealing, plundering, and murdering are not per- mitted. Some notion of the extent and frequency of Masai raids may be gathered from Gregory's statement based on his own observations in 1893. " South of Merifano on the Tana, Harris and I found the Galla driving their flocks and herds across the river to escape the marauders, and saw the smoke of the burn- ing villages whence the natives had fled. At the Kiboko river I found the dead bodies of some Wa- Kamba who must have been surprised and murdered in their sleep, as their arrows were still in their sheaths, and their simes in their scabbards. Two days' journey north of this place the road was littered v.ith the debris of broken boxes captured from a caravan taking stores to Sir Gerald Portal's party in Uganda. Again, on the Kapte plains near Bondini, during our second march south from Machakos, we encountered a small party of El-Moran, who were on their way to attack some Ki- Kamba villages. On the plains of the Thika-Thika we met some Kikuyu refugees from Igeti ; their country had been ravaged by the Masai army which we had seen enkraaled on the shores of Lake Naivasha, and the district, for two days' march in length by one in breadth, had been cleared as if by a hurricane. The fugitives described the sudden attack, the massacre, the devasta- tion of the plantations, the capture of the cattle and the burning oi the villages. And yet as we listened to this sickening story, we realised that this was merely one incident in a continuous series of such horrors." The warriors in the zenith of their power would 96 EASTERN ETHIOPIA vm sometimes take a thousand head of cattle in a single raid. After a successful capture of cattle the warriors returned to their kraals and divided the spoils. The foe is routed : surely not in vain Upon our brows we bound the lion's mane. With bootless zeal the herdsman tracked our line, Far, far ahead we drove the captured kine. Their kraals we've burnt, their cattle we have ta'en, And now we come in triumph home again. W. J. Monson. Feasting and fighting among themselves were usual sequels to successful raids. Joseph Thomson in his African romance, Ulu, has described a blood-and-meat orgy which followed a cattle raid. The most remarkable adornments of the men and women are the curious ornaments worn in their ears, especially that known as the 'surutya (see the Essay on Ears). All tribes which disregard clothes as a rule pay great attention to their hair. This is true of the Masai. After the boys have been circumcised, the hair is allowed to grow and, as soon as it is long enough, worked into plaits. In wet weather the hair is protected by a cap made from the paunch of a goat. The women dress in leather garments ; shave their heads and eyebrows ; wear earrings and encase their legs and arms with coils of iron, brass, or copper wire. The wire coils are sometimes wound so tightly round the limbs that the wearer moves with difficulty. The wire coils around the neck resemble the well-known firework arrangement called a Catherine wheel. All these metal ornaments are kept brightly polished. The young unmarried girls have an agreeable time, for when a boy becomes a warrior he no longer lives among the married members of his tribe, but in separate kraals with the girls. The newly initiated warrior usually selects the girls with whom he wishes to live. Thus whilst the warriors and girls are philandering and VIII THE MASAI 97 what is often termed enjoying life by spending their time in dancing, singing, and adorning themselves, the mothers A Masai Woman. 98 EASTERN ETHIOPIA vm of the men are engaged in what may be called house- work and cooking. The women also milk the cows and goats, and in this they are assisted by the boys. Now that the Masai no longer raid their neighbours and steal cattle the occupation of the warriors is gone, but these nn'ii make excellent herdsmen and are often employed in this capacity by European settlers. The Masai are not only polygamous but also polyandrous, for the wife is lent to a visitor : they are exceedingly immoral. Thomson states that though the Masai and Wa-Kikuyu were eternally at war with each other, there is a compact between them not to molest the womenfolk of either party, and the Masai women would wend their way to a Kikuyu village whilst their relatives were probably engaged in a deadly struggle close at hand. The Masai are fond of moving, and if the grazing is poor they move to another place. The donkeys and women are the pack animals. It is quite common to meet with a party on the move and find the women laden with babies, bags, gourds, and other utensils ; the work of raising the skin tents or building huts devolves on them also. The men accompanying the party merely carry their spears and clubs. With us to spit upon a thing expresses contempt ; with the Masai it is a sign of friendship and respect. The two lower incisor teeth are knocked out in men and women, and no reason is assigned for this practice ; in spitting the fluid is ejected through this gap, some- times in a forcible stream. I first saw the practice in a village. When my conductor entered the village a woman of the tribe advanced and shook hands with him, having previously spat in her palm. My friend spat on his palm, and I noticed that he did not shake hands with what would be called warmth. I mentioned this opinion to him subsequently ; he replied that she had expressed her high appreciation of his visit by spitting VIII THE MASAI 99 too freely into her hand ! Among these people spitting is a custom with an infinite variety of meanings. The Masai take very little trouble with their dead. The corpse is carried a short distance from the village and left to be devoured by hyaenas, jackals, and vultures. They believe that when a man dies it is the end as with the cattle. To bury a corpse would, in their idea, poison the soil. Masai drawing blood from an ox by shooting a blocked arrow into the jugular vein. (From the Veterinarian. After R. J. Stordy.) The principal food of the old men, women, and child- ren is milk. The warriors drive bullocks into the forest and slaughter them for meat. All the members of a village would eat an ox if it died a natural death, or if killed by a snake, or a beast of prey. They are very fond of blood, which is obtained from an ox by shooting a blocked arrow into its jugular vein. The blood they catch in gourds and drink it hot from the H 2 ioo EASTERN ETHIOPIA vm beast. Drinking blood seems a horrible practice, but the poor in England eat a large quantity of blood in the form of a sausage known as " black pudding " which consists of bullocks' blood, spiced, mixed with fat and cooked. Blood is an important ingredient in the haggis so famous in Scotland, and in whose honour Burns wrote a poem describing it as the "Great Chieftain o' the puddin' race." Moreover, some thirty years ago the drinking of warm bullocks' blood was advocated as a cure for consumption, and patients afflicted with this disease would regularly attend slaughter-houses in London and drink the pre- scribed quantity of this supposed specific. As the Masai live on milk, meat, and blood, and hunt no game, they are dependent on their flocks and herds. Zebras, gazelles, and kongoni run unmolested with the cattle. Their domestic animals are cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys, and dogs. The cattle are humped (zebus) and oxen without humps they treat with disdain. The settlers have crossed some of the native cattle with un- humped species and in two generations the hump disappears. Anatomically the hump of the zebu consists of fat interspersed with muscle fibre ; the latter is derived from the broad thin stratum of muscle known as the panniculus carnosus, immediately beneath the skin. This is the muscle which enables oxen and horses to twitch their skin, especially when irritated by flies. The hump is excellent to eat, especially when salted. The cattle can take care of themselves. It is stated that a herd will charge a leopard, or a hyaena, and leave it a shapeless mass. It is common for a boy of five or six years to be left ill charge of a herd of cattle and manage them without difficulty. It is strange that cattle allow children to manage them so easily. Kipling, in the delightful Jungle Book, refers to this matter in India : the very cattle, he writes, that VIII THE MASAI 101 would trample a white man to death allow themselves to be banged and bullied and shouted at by children who hardly come up to their noses. The Masai love their cattle very much. Each cow is known by name. As the cattle feed on grass the Masai love it on this account. In times of drought the women fasten grass to their clothes and pray. In nl - A Masai Bull. The cattle are humped like the Zebu. Oxen without humps the Masai treat with disdain. a fight grass is used as a sign of peace. They castrate their bulls in the following manner : — The operation is performed on bulls from two to four years. • The animal is cast by means of leather thongs ; the feet are tied and the wives hang on to the thongs and hold its head down. The cutting instrument is a knife or arrow-head set in a handle. These things are made by the smiths from 102 EASTERN ETHIOPIA vm native iron, or imported iron wire. An incision is made in the scrotum to expose the gland, which is then pulled out by main force. Both testicles are extracted through a single incision. The animal is then bled from the jugular vein, the opening in the vein being made by shooting a blocked arrow into it. The blood is collected in calabashes to be drunk at the end of the day. As the bull joins the herd, the wife of the operator smears its back with cow-dung for luck. (R. J. Stordy.) The Masai not only act as veterinarians, but they practise surgery. In treating comminuted fractures they cut down upon the fragments, remove the splinters, bring the broken edges into contact, and suture the wound with sinews from the back of the ox. This is on a level with the best modern surgery. When it is realised that a man's bone cannot be mended, the surgeons fasten a ligature round the limb and ampu- tate it. (Hollis.) These shepherd warriors are dignified men ; they are born orators and conduct lengthy arguments. They are also wags in their way, and exhibit their wit at the expense of the Swahili, whom they despise. The Masai rarely smoke and do not take intoxicating drink : they reckon time by the sun, and fix dates by the moon and rain. There are two rainy seasons annually. Their kraals consist of low, oblong, round-topped huts, placed end to end, surrounding a circular enclosure with a diameter of thirty or forty feet which is used as the .stockyard. The framework of the huts is wood and wickerwork filled in with a mixture of cow-dung and mud. The doorway of the hut is a hole which looks towards the stockyard. In building the huts the rafters are completely hidden with the cow-dung and mud mixture except one which protrudes beyond the door : " It is said to be watching the cattle " (Hollis). Outside the continuous line of huts, a strong thorn fence (boma) affords protection against man and wild beasts. viii THE MASAI 103 During the dry season such a place is habitable, but in wet weather detestable. In order to protect the roofs of the huts hides are spread over them and tied down or kept in place by stones. These hides not only stink, but are visited by myriads of insects, such as crawl and fly. The central space of the village is a reeking dunghill haunted by clouds of flies. Bearing in mind the moral and physical conditions under which these people live in their villages, there is ample justification for Routledge's strong opinion, that a Masai kraal near civilisation, i.e., near a railway station, town, or Government post, is a sink of iniquity. The cattle are the mainstay of the tribe : it was recently estimated that the section of this tribe living in the Naivasha Province owns 35,000 head of cattle and 250,000 goats and sheep. The white settler finds fault with the Masai on the ground that their great object is to accumulate wealth in the form of herds and flocks. They will not sell any cattle useful for stock purposes : barren and dried up cows they part with to be slaughtered for food. They do not encourage the milk-yielding properties of their cows. The Masai, however, now play a different part in East Africa from that which they performed thirty years ago : from 1850 to 1885 they were numerous and formidable. Their military organisation made them feared by their neighbours, and they have played an important part in East Africa. For many years they levied toll on the Arab slave dealers, the Swahili traders, and all caravans, whether organised by Arabs or Europeans, which passed through Masailand. Joseph Thomson suffered from their arrogance and exactions in 1883 and has written an excellent account of these bloodthirsty, overbearing warriors. The Masai have since fallen from their high estate. Rinderpest attacked and destroyed their cattle whole- >.ile. Many of them have died from smallpox, and the io4 EASTERN ETHIOPIA vm tribes who were raided by them in the days of their power have not been slow in making reprisals for the murdering and plundering of days gone by. At the present time it is estimated that this tribe in British East Africa do not exceed 25 ; 000 : " The Rift Valley and the high plateaus where the fierce blood- thirsty Masai once reigned supreme are becoming colonised by white settlers." Hollis, in his admirable monograph on this tribe, asks the pertinent question : Will the Masai alter his habit or cease to exist ? Thoughtful and experienced men, who have carefully studied this question, are of the opinion that any plan of leaving the Masai to themselves, with their old military and social organisation untouched, is fraught with danger to the tribe as well as to the public peace. HINDE, S. L., } and \The Last of the Masai. London, 1901. HINDE, H. (Mrs.)J HOLLIS, A. C. The Masai : Language and Folk-lore. Oxford, 1905. STOKDY, R. J. "Emasculation of the Bull by the Masai Tribe," Veterinarian, 1900, 525. THOMSON, J. Through Masailand. London, 1885. ,, Ulu. An African Romance. 2 vols. London, 1888. IX WA-KJKUYU. THE PEOPLE OF THE KIKUYU COUNTRY. THE area commonly known as the Kikuyu country, though traversed by the Uganda Railway, is imper- fectly delimited ; southward it abuts on the Athi plains ; northward it is near the equator ; eastward it extends towards Mount Kenia, and westward to the Aberdare mountains and the edge of the Rift Valley. Those parts of this country best known to Europeans, sometimes termed the Kikuyu Highlands, are 6,000 feet above the level of the sea, and were formerly covered with thick forest, but the \Va-Kikuyu have gradually cleared it with the help of fire ; now, with the excep- tions of patches here and there of virgin forest, the best part of the country consists of undulating land dotted with villages and patches of cultivation. The extremes of temperature experienced at this altitude are trying ; in the dry season the temperature varies from below freezing point at midnight to above 90° Fahr. at noon. The weather is unpleasant in the wet season and hailstorms of great violence are fairly common. The Wa-Kikuyu are agriculturists and grow maize, millet, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, bananas, tobacco, castor-oil trees, beans, and the arum lily. The work in the fields is performed by the women. These people also possess nocks and herds, chiefly goats and sheep, and the care of the animals devolves on the men and boys. The possession of flocks and herds excited the 105 io6 EASTERN ETHIOPIA IX supidity of neighbouring tribes, especially the Masai. These two tribes were perpetually at war. The Wa- Kikuyu is the only people which offered any real resistance to the swaggering, fighting, raiding Masai. In order to raid Kikuyu cattle the Masai warriors had to travel through the forest along winding tracts beset with pits, with the enemy lining the side bush with bows and arrows, swords and spears. On the plains the Wa-Kikuyu warriors were no match for them, but in the depths of the forest the El-Muran raiding parties had a bad time. The warriors of Kikuyu imitated their warlike neigh- bours in many ways, such as copying their customs in regard to liair-.chessing, decorating themselves with feathers, the hair of goats, the long tails of the guereza monkeys, and the tusks of the wart-hog. Men mutilate their ears in the Masai style, practise circumcision, file their teeth, and possess the habit of standing on one leg. They attach the same value to spitting as a charm and a sign of friendship, and imitate the Masai in their weapons of war, such as spears, swords (sime), bows, arrows, knobkerries, and shields. The warriors also ape the El-Muran in the drinking of blood, which they obtain from the cattle, by piercing the jugular vein by means of the blocked arrow, as practised by their warrior neighbours. Mr. and Mrs. Koutledge A Honey Barrel ornamented with poker-work. IX WA-KIKUYU 107 have described the comic side of " the drinking of warm blood " in their interesting account of the Kikuyu people. They make an alcoholic drink from the juice of the sugar cane. The juice is obtained by pounding the cane in a trough with wooden pestles. This is the A Man of Kikuyu with a gallipot in the distended lobe of the ear. work of the women. A fermented drink is also made from honey. The Wa-Kikuyu are fond of honey, and honey barrels are seen fixed in the branches of an" isolated tree. A honey box in a tree in the Kikuyu country is a feature in the landscape. It is a wooden cylinder, io8 EASTERN ETHIOPIA IX hollowed out from the trunk of a tree until it consists of a shell about two inches thick ; the exterior is trimmed Honey Barrel in a tree in a Kikuyu maize shamba. sometimes quite smoothly, and the ends are occluded by two rounded pieces of wood let into a groove so that they appear like the ends of a barrel, The bees ix WA-KIKUYU 109 find their way in through apertures at either end. The boxes are ornamented with poker-work or with a clan design so that the owner is known. The object of the honey barrel is to induce the wild bees to build the comb therein ; it is then safe from birds. The huts are simple one-chambered dwellings. The walls consist of a ring of posts stuck into the ground to support the roof : the interspaces between the posts are filled with wattling and the wall thus formed is bedaubed with clay. The roof-poles extend beyond the wall, so when the hut is thatched with dried reeds or grass the overhanging portion of the roof, which is supported by additional series of poles, forms a verandah. These huts have no windows and the entrance lacks a door, but at night a wickerwork arrangement something like a hurdle, made from a tough creeper, is placed against it and wedged in position by a piece of timber. These huts, though built of such frail material, will, if looked after, last for many years, but a deserted hut soon falls to pieces. A great destroying agent is the termite : and these huts readily catch fire. The Masai formerly stopped caravans which the Arabs, ivory dealers, and slave raiders conducted through their lands, and demanded toll ; the Wa-Kikuyu, on the other hand, pilfered where they could, but they preferred to barter with the Arabs and supply them with grain and food. The bartering with caravans, as all readers of Thomson's journey through Masailand know, is done by the women. The Wa-Kikuyu have regular market days : on such occasions ornaments and weapons are bartered : iron ore and charcoal are offered for exchange : firewood and grain may be obtained : men can buy beer, and gossip is universal. Such things as salt, string, bananas, birds' skins, earthenware pots, fat, knives, gourds, sugar cane, honey barrels, feathers, tobacco, hides, and skins are there for those who need them. 110 EASTERN ETHIOPIA IX Formerly barter was the chief means of exchange ; beads were accepted as payment, but Government has introduced the cent and this simplifies matters. The women of Kikuyu are interesting folk : whilst the boys and men are looking after goats and sheep Whilst the men and boys are looking after the goats or sleeping in the sun, the women are cultivating the shambas, keeping the ground clear of weeds, or fetching big loads of firewood from the forests. (in former times fighting), or sleeping in the sun, the women are cultivating the land, keeping the plots clear of weeds. They bring in big loads of firewood from the forest. It is also their duty to fetch water either in ix WA-KIKUYU in huge earthenware jars or gourds. These heavy things they carry on their backs suspended by a broad leather strap passing round the forehead. The younger women pound the grain as well as cook it ; and in the daytime. The young Kikuyu women pound the grain as well as cook it. when there is nothing more important to do, they may be seen sewing skins and fashioning the peculiar clothes with which they cover themselves. In these communities there is no washing day : no beds to make : the children require neither washing nor taking to school. No stockings to darn or boots to mend, for they wear nothing on their feet. 112 EASTERN ETHIOPIA IX The sewing is done by means of an awl and pointed thread : the latter is a fibre obtained from the bark of trees. The string used by them is sometimes made The Kikuyu women strive to get many rings through the arti- ficial openings in their ears. On one occasion I counted forty-four rings in the pinna ; the majority were in the lobe- loop, but a dozen occupied a slit in the concha. from the tendons of animals. The Wa- Kikuyu require string for many purposes, such as setting snares, tying cane and reeds into bundles, repairing calabashes, string- ing beads, and weaving bags. ix WA-KIKUYU 113 Boys run about without any clothes, but even the smallest girls wear leather aprons. Older girls and women wear a leather petticoat of curious shape fastened round the waist ; it has two curious pointed lappels hanging in front. The upper part of the body is protected by a leather cloak, which is worn for warmth, but with no idea of concealing the figure. When the girl is old enough for marriage she wears a band of beads across her forehead, which is also ornamented with shells. The women also wear ear- rings, armlets, and anklets. The iron they require is obtained from ore found in the country and smelted by their own smiths, who are able to make all the iron articles required, such as iron wire, chains, rings, ornaments, spears, swords, hoes, hammers, collars, &c. They are specially good at making iron wire which is used for the purpose of ornament. At times copper wire is obtainable for chain-making. The Wa-Kikuyu also make useful pottery. The women are the potters and they mould the soft material by hand. Their methods of hair-dressing are described on p. 156. Goats play such an important part in the domestic economy of the Masai and the Wa-Kikuyu that they demand some consideration. It is an easy thing to distinguish a horse from an ass when they are seen in real life, but if one is asked to describe or even enumerate the distinguishing points of these two familiar animals the matter is not quite simple. The points which distinguish goats from sheep are less marked and fewer. The Wa-Kikuyu make no distinc- tion between sheep and goats : even zoologists find it difficult to draw a satisfactory line of distinction between them. A typical he-goat has a beard, long angulated, transversely wrinkled horns, and a strong odour. Sheep and goats are prized for their milk, flesh, and skins. A man's wealth is estimated by the size of his flocks and I P:ASTERN ETHIOPIA IX As goats are herds. unit of value being An ear ornament which the Wa-Kikuyu around Mi unit Kenia wear in the helix. (British Museum.) The beads of the top row are white ; the second row, grey. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth rows consist of bright blue beads ; those of the seventh row are grey, and the basal row is formed of pieces of reeds or straw. The chain is of iron and of native make. The beads attached to the lower end of the chain are white. used for the purchase of wives (the a goat), these animals are therefore carefully watched by day, and at night they are guarded in strong enclosures. The sheep and goats are ear-marked, and, as is the custom with shepherds in Europe, the flocks are counted night and morning. In every village there is a long wooden trough containing salt for the animals to lick. According to the Routledges there are some deft-handed sur- geons among the natives of Kikuyu. Sword slashes and stab wounds are sewn up. The method of suture is simple : one or more strong thorns are passed deeply through the tissues at the edges of the wound, a hole being made by an awl to enable the thorn to be inserted ; a string of vegetable fibre is wound round the thorn in the form of a " figure of eight," which ensures good apposition. Intermediate sutures are used if required. This form of suture was largely used by the best surgeons in the civilised world thirty years ago. Every man carries a formidable knobkerry or club ; at times it is used very freely and many depressed fractures are produced by these weapons. An account of the Masai and Wa-Kikuyu would be incomplete without an account of their living IX WA-KIKUYU sepulchres — the hyaenas. These animals belong to the same group of Carnivora as the cats and civets, but differ fioin tlicsc Ity their ungainly shape and ugliness. The spotted hyu-iia (HytBna crocuta) is the species seen in East Africa. This beast, when full-grown, is nearly three feet in height and nearly six feet from the nose to the tip of —;**£i£ f- :^f-*^£^- ~£~r~-t-~- *~~~~ AW • ^< The spotted hyaena, the living sepulchre of the dead Masai and Wa-Kikuyu. the tail. The hyaena has four toes on each foot, and as the claws are non-retractile its footprints are easily recognised by the marks of the nails, and by being larger than those of the hunting-dog. Its front legs are longer than the hind pair. It is difficult to tell the sex of a hyaena on superficial examination. The voice of the hyaena is extraordinary, on account of the variety u6 EASTERN ETHIOPIA ix of its sounds ; the snarling, hideous, laughing noise it utters round a carcase is only made when they are annoyed or excited. The natives believe that animals and birds talk to one another like human beings. The noise the hyaena makes when he finds a corpse is supposed to be " I have found." Hollis in his account of the Nandi gives numerous examples. The senses of sight and smell are very acute in hyaenas. These animals are gregarious and troops of eight or more are common ; although they rarely seize wild game they kill donkeys, goats, and even cattle, and they will Skull of n Hyiena (Hyivna crociita), showing the sectorial or carnassial tooth. The well-marked ridges afford attach- ment for the powerful muscles of mastication. (Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. ) attack wounded game. Hyaenas eat every portion of a wounded carcase, skin, flesh, and bones, their powerful jaws enabling them to crack every bone. A hyaena's skull is easily recognised by the big vertical crest which affords attachment to the powerful muscles which close the jaws. The large upper premolar tooth, which over- laps the lower premolar and forms a powerful pair of shears for cracking bones and biting off pieces of flesh, is known as the sectorial or carnassial tooth. The hyaena is a great coward, but hunger makes most animals venturesome, so with the hyaena ; when ix WA-KIKUYU 117 hungry he will carry off babies from the huts and some- times adults are seriously bitten. It is the habit of the animal to bite pieces off the exposed parts of the body >iu-h as the cheek or buttock. Donaldson Smith gives some facts concerning the strength of the jaws of hyaenas. He saw one of these animals pull the horn out of a goat which had been fastened to a stake, and with another bite tear off the whole hind-leg. On one occasion he wounded a hartebeest with a bullet, breaking its leg. A number of hyaenas set on the hartebeest and succeeded in pulling it down and began to bite pieces out of the hindquarters ; several of them were shot and the rest left the hartebeest. The antelope regained its feet and began to make off, but a merciful bullet finished its career. Hollis has translated from the Nandi the following folk-tale which explains how leopards got spots on their coats, and hyaenas blotches : Two lion whelps seeing some warriors adorned for war thought they would look well if painted. They procured some paint, and one whelp dabbed a number of black spots on the coat of his friend. The spotted whelp began to paint his companion when they heard the cry, " A goat has been lost." The painter then threw the paint-pot at his friend and rushed away to find the lost goat. The spotted whelp became a leopard, the partially painted one, a hysena. References : \V. Scoresby Routledge and Katherine Routledge With a Prehistoric People : The Akikdyu oj British East Africa 1910. X ORNAMENTS FOR THE EARS AND LIPS (HELIX QUILLS, EAR PLUGS, AND LABRETs) HUMAN vanity assumes many forms, and one of its grotesque expressions is furnished by a study of the ear ornaments of the Masai and Wa-Kikuyu in East Africa. In order to appreciate this phase of fashion and deformity it is necessary to give a short description of the natural ear. The appendages commonly known as ears are termed auricles or pinnae by anatomists : each consists of a framework of gristle (yellow elastic cartilage) overlaid with skin furnished with minute hairs, secreting glands, and fat. The skin covering the auricle is abundantly supplied with nerves from several sources and with blood-vessels ; its vascularity being declared when the ear becomes delicately pink in harmony with the cheeks when a pretty maiden's face is suffused with a blush. It is also acutely sensitive to cold and physical insults, especially pinching. The various parts of the auricle have received specific names, but there are two parts which it is necessary for the reader to identify in con- nection with the subject-matter of this chapter. It is also to be borne in mind that the external ear or pinna in human beings is not necessary for the purpose of hearing. The auricle is bounded by a rim called the helix : the lower part is known as the lobule. The helix consists entirely of gristle covered with skin, whilst the lobule is 118 x ORNAMENTS FOR THE EARS AND LIPS 119 mainly a skin-covered piece of fat. The size of the ear varies in different individuals, and the lobe presents great variations in shape and degrees of development in proportion to the helix. The various contrivances employed for adorning the ears among mankind may be set down in two classes, ear-studs and ear-rings. As a rule, ear-studs are in- serted into the helix and ear-rings into the lobe. In some instances the lobe is converted into a loop for the retention of the ornament. In many civilised countries ear-rings are worn in the lobe, and this style of decoration is usually con- fined to women. Among the Masai orna- ments are worn in the ear by men and women. When the boys and girls have passed through their " initiation ceremonies," the lobe of the ear is pierced and a thin spigot of wood inserted into the hole. Gradually this hole is enlarged by the intro- duction of thicker pieces of wood until it is large enough to receive a stone with a groove running round it. These stones vary in size, but the ultimate result is the transformation of the lobe into a rounded cord-like loop, which in the black cars of these men and women looks like a ring of india- rubber. Among the Masai the full size is attained when the cutaneous ring of one side will meet its fellow over the crown. The largest stone ear-plug in existence was presented to the British Museum by Mr. A. C. Hollis : it weighs two pounds and fourteen ounces. The external Ear, or Pinna. I2O EASTERN ETHIOPIA It would be thought that the ears of these people are larger than those of other men and women, but this is not the case ; indeed, Captain S. L. Hinde, who lived among these people in an official capacity for many months, states that the ear of the Masai when left to itself is small and of good shape. An examination of some of these enormous ring-like lobes shows that the tissue forming the loop undergoes hypertrophy during the dilating process. When the lobe has been stretched to its utmost capacity it becomes the receptacle of many strange things, such as plugs of wood, rings of horn or of ebony ; occasionally a can or a gallipot will be found in it. The ear-lobe of the women is also dilated, and they wear a curious earring, as well as a necklace made of iron wire. These coils of iron wire resemble the firework known as a Catherine-wheel. Such ear ornaments, known as 'surutya, are fastened to the lobe by means of a strap of leather with a kauri shell fixed to it. In addition to the lobe, the helix is also adorned with orna- ments of various kinds. In some the ornaments are thrust into holes made in the rim of the ear, or the concha may be slit below the rim of the helix. The helix is perhaps more freely used by the Wa-Kikuyu than the Masai. A superficial examination is sufficient to indicate that ornamented ears possess some social or tribal signifi- cance. This is indeed the case. Hollis has collected some valuable information on this matter. Women wear necklaces of iron and ear-rings ('surutya) in order The Ear of a Masai. The lobe is pierced and • gradually dilated until it resembles a ring of indiarubber. x ORNAMENTS FOR THE EARS AND LIPS 121 that it shall be known that they are married. Women's ear-rings are of great consequence, for no woman ven- tures to leave them off during the husband's lifetime. Should she happen to take them off whilst doing her work, she would, on his approach, run into the hut and resume them, so that he should not see her without them. If the husband went away from home she would not venture to take the ear-rings off for fear other men should see her without them. A Stone Ball, weighing '2 Ib. 14 oz., used by the Masai for enlarging the hole in the lobe of the ear. (British Museum.) Boys and girls insert blocks of wood into their ears ; warriors and old men wear chain ear-rings. No Masai elder may wear the ear-rings called 'surutya unless he has children who have been circumcised and become warriors. When the father dies the whole family mourns for him ; the widows lay aside their ear-rings, necklaces, and beads for a whole year. Thus it is clear that the ear ornaments are full of significance as representing the age and social state of men, boys and women among the Masai. It doubtless 122 EASTERN ETHIOPIA obtains in other tribes, especially among a closely allied tribe, the Nandi. The men and women of the Kikuyu country devote much care to the decoration of their ears, and, like the Masai, attach ornaments to the helix as well as to the lobe, but the styles of ear-studs and ear-rings of the Wa- Kikuyu differ in some particular from those of their neighbours. The Ear of a Masai with the stone in situ. The boys, when they are nearly ripe for circumcision, have the rims of their ears pierced in several places; through the holes three, and occasionally five reeds are introduced ; these reeds project from the rim of the helix, but lie in the same plane as the ear. In the case of women five holes are made in the helix. In its simplest form the ornament consists of a piece of grass with a bead of gum at the base to x ORNAMENTS FOR THE EARS AND LIPS 123 prevent it from slipping out. Sometimes the ends of the reeds are fitted into a piece of leather which lies in the depression under the rim of the helix. Occasionally the reeds are adorned with coloured heads. A fairly common ornament for the helix is a piece of silver beaten flat like a leaf. It is made from a Maria Theresa dollar. This coin formerly circulated freely in Africa. The Wa-Kikuyu also distend the lobe of the ear like the Masai and fit into it a cylinder of wood, a can, or a gallipot. Objects of this kind are usually seen in the ears of men. The women prefer to fill the holes in their ears with large rings made of small beads threaded on wire. These bead rings are not only used in the large hole made in the lobe, but the women often have a long slit made through the concha, and rings of beads are fitted into it. It would be reasonably anticipated, in view of the great trouble, inconveni- ence, and, no doubt, some i_ • i up • • i j The Masai Ear-ring ('surutya). No physical suffering involved Masai elder is6aiiowed to wear in transforming the lobe this ornament unless he has f , -i -i children who have been circum- OI tne ear into a rubber- cised and become warriors. I24 EASTERN ETHIOPIA like cord of tissue capable of surrounding a cylin- drical jar, or a disc of wood, with a diameter of three or four inches, that these deformed ears arc regarded by their owners with pride and their neighbours with envy. This is the case. To break- one of these rings of tissue is a great offence. In all countries, civilised and uncivilised, rival beauties The Ear of a Kikuyu man with a ring in the lobe and reeds in the helix. are liable to quarrel and even fight desperately ; in such encounters each combatant endeavours to ruin the beauty of her rival. Scratching furrows in the cheeks is a common form of revenge. Shakespeare, in his description of the scene in which Margaret, Queen to Henry VI., boxes the ears of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, makes the angry duchess shriek : x ORNAMENTS FOR THE EARS AND LIPS 125 Could I come near your beauty with my nails, I'd set my ten commandments in your face. This is a neat reference to the marks left by ten tinker nails. The Kikuyu women when they "fall out" snatch at each other's ear loops and endeavour to break them. A Kikuyu man with a plug of wood in the lobe of the ear. A surgeon, who practises in Nairobi informs me that on several occasions, he has succeeded in reuniting ear- loops broken in this way, and the natives have men among them who perform plastic surgery of this kind very successfully. As a result of the British occupation of the Protector- 126 EASTERN ETHIOPIA x ate many Swahili, Masai, and Wa-Kikuyu have been trained as police (askari) and soldiers (The King's African Rifles). Ear ornaments under such conditions are not wanted, but in order to preserve the ear-loop it is hooked over the helix, where it is safe from harm. As soon as the askari (native policeman) has finished the term of service, usually about three years, he returns to his tribe, abandons uniform, resumes ear-rings, spear, knobkerry (club), and skin ; becoming once more an unclothed native, he smears himself with greasy clay, and joins in the village dance. That these men should become policemen, and protect the tribes they formerly robbed and murdered, illustrates the conditions now prevailing in Masailand. The love of personal adornment is very great among these people. Schillings tells of a Masai boy \vho had been many times to Germany and had mastered the language. On becoming a man he decided to return to his people, and was subsequently seen by a European who knew him, covered with clay and his hair in long plaits dripping with grease, in company with a fellow- tribesman in full war dress. The mutilation of ears is by no means confined to human beings. The ears of cattle, sheep, and donkeys are marked for identification purposes. The ear-marks are of two kinds — branding and slitting. Among the Masai there is for each clan and family a principal mark, and all the cattle belonging to the various members of a family are branded in a special way. There are also small marks by which the actual owner can be recognised. This is also true of the special methods of slitting ears. Some of the ear-slitting designs are curious ; on meeting Somali traders with a herd of cattle I always found it amusing to examine the odd patterns cut in the ears of the oxen. In connexion with this matter it should be borne in mind that in the early days of the Israelites, if a man- servant wished to serve his master for ever, a hole was x ORNAMENTS FOR THE EARS AND LIPS 127 bored through his ear " with an aul " (Exodus xxi. 6). Ear-marking is a very old custom. I/ijt ()riniin<'iitx or 1,'ihfctx. Some African tribes. especially those living in the Nile Valley, follow the practice of decorating the upper or the lower lip by piercing it and subsequently dilating the hole until it will accommodate a plug of wood in some instances as large as that used by the Masai and \Va-Kikuyu for their ears. Several African travellers have drawn attention to this fashion, especially Schweinfurth in his A native of the Makomle plateau with a labret and ear plugs. (From Weule's Native Life in Ea#t Africa.} description of the Bongo and Mittoo women (1873) and more recently by Weule, who observed it among the tribes inhabiting the Makonde plateau and the sur- rounding country. 128 EASTERN ETHIOPIA Discs of wood for the upper lip are known as the pelele and the lip is prepared for its reception in the same way as the lobe of the ear among the Masai. The lip is pierced with an awl when the girl is about eight years of age : the hole is kept open by means of a piece A Young Woman of the Murle Tribe living near Lake Rudolf. The labret is a portion of the horn of an ox ; the ends are plugged with wood. The lower incisor teeth have been removed. The beads of her necklace are made from the shells of ostrich eggs. (From von Hohnel's account of Count Telekfe Journey to Lake. Rudolf. ) of grass, and further enlarged by using thicker grass or two or three stalks, until it is big enough to receive a piece of palm leaf made into a roll. In time the opening in the lip is big enough to receive a disc of x ORNAMENTS FOR THE EARS AND LIPS 129 ebony or wood two to three inches in diameter. Some of the women wear a metal pin or peg in the lower lip. This wooden plug is daily whitened with carefully washed kaolin. The girl's lip is usually pierced by her maternal uncle ; the mother is responsible for main- taining and enlarging the hole. The day is kept as a festival when the first solid plug is inserted, and a husband cuts a new pelele for his wife. When a girl with a labret chatters freely the eye can scarcely follow the motion of the disc, and when she laughs the comic effect is indescribable. Livingstone mentions the pelele* as being worn by women on the Zambesi (1856). Sekwebu, his faithful guide, remarked, " These women want to make their mouths like those of ducks." Sub- sequently, in the Rovuma valley he saw men as well as women wearing the pelele, and noticed that in some cases its pressure on the upper gum and front teeth caused an alteration in their natural curve, for the teeth and the bone in which they were implanted curved inward instead of outward. Schweinfurth states that the labrets among the Mittoo women are made of ivory, ebony, or quartz. AY hen drinking, the women raise the upper lip with the finger. In some of the Suk people, the lower lip is pierced and in the hole a bird or porcupine quill is inserted ; sometimes a piece of brass or a tooth. The natives in some parts of South America known as the Botocudos wear solid lip ornaments, and their name is derived from this habit, for the Portuguese word botoque means a plug. The most extraordinary form of labret found in East Africa occurs among the women of the Murle tribe living near Lake Stefanie. A hole is bored through O O the lower lip, and this hole is gradually enlarged until a piece of ox-horn three to three and a half inches thick, and three inches long, can be inserted. The two openings in the piece of horn are plugged with wood. The mouth by this means is kept open arid as K 130 EASTERN ETHIOPIA x the lower incisors are broken off, the tongue exposed to view, producing an unpleasant appearance. L. von Hohnel gives an account of this tribe in his description of Count Teleki's expedition. Donaldson Smith, who subsequently visited Lake Stefanie, states that the girls of the Murle (Marie) tribe have good figures and regular oval features. The men mutilate the lips of the women in order to keep them from being stolen by their neighbours. An Ornamented Labret or Lip Plug, called Pelele. (British Museum. ) XI THE NDOROBO — THE NAKED HUNTERS OF THE MAU FOREST PRIMITIVE man has often been depicted as living stark naked, hunting animals with bow and arrow ; eating flesh uncooked ; living in holes in trees, in caves, or under shelters made of boughs, leaves, or dried grass. There is no need to draw on the imagination, for the Ndorobo living in the thick forests bordering the Mau Escarpment, fulfil these conditions. These natural hunters live in the thick forests, where they shoot birds and the Colobus monkey with poisoned arrows. They obtain larger mammals by digging narrow pits across their tracks. These pits are prepared at various angles and the game driven towards them : the animals stumble into the narrow pits and fall, breaking their legs and sometimes their backs. The largest animals are caught in regular gamepits. The Ndorobo use a peculiar weapon for hunting the elephant of which Thomson has given a good description. In shape it is something like the rammer of a cannon, the heavy head giving additional weight in dealing a blow. The thickened part holds a wreapon shaped like a dart or arrow ; the sharp end of the dart is smeared \vith a deadly poison. When the terminal piece is in position the whole weapon measures about eight feet in length. With this spear the elephant is attacked at close quarters ; the dart is driven into its body and being loosely fixed in the handle it sticks in the animal : 131 K £ 132 EASTERN ETHIOPIA XI _L 14 Ndorobo Elephant Spear. A. The Dart. (British Museum.) the handle of the harpoon remains with the hunter. Another dart is placed in the handle and the operation is repeated when circumstances are favourable. In making the thrust, the hunter endeavours to stick the dart in the abdomen where the intestines lie. The shaft of the arrow-like portion of this complicated spear is made of the wood of the wild olive. The wood of this tree is used for singularly varied purposes hi different parts of the world. In East Africa it is used for spears and railway sleepers : in Palestine, especially at Jerusalem, it is employed to make penholders and the covers of books, especially prayer-books and Bibles. The Ndorobo are quite naked when living in the wood, but when among white men, who employ them as trackers, they wear a blanket over the shoulders. Their ears are disfigured by helix-quills, by rings, and plugs of wood inserted into the lobes. They do not tattoo their bodies, but they dress their hair after the fashion of the Masai. The Ndorobo do not form large tribes, but conceal themselves in the forest, where they live in holes or under shelters made of grass, and slink about the forest. Occasionally they come out to barter the proceeds of their hunting with the settlers. When an animal is killed they eat the flesh uncooked, and are particularly fond of the viscera, the paunch of ruminants, and the soft internal fat of the abdomen : they often fight with each other to obtain choice morsels. The country in which the Ndorobo XI THE NDOROBO 133 live is full of flowers, so that honey abounds. Like the Wa-Kikuyu, they are fond of honey and their hives are made on the same plan as the Kikuyu honey- barrels. Ethiopian bees are very ferocious, and many explorers have had trouble with them. Macdonald describes them as pugnacious, and with good reason, for whilst An Ndorobo with large ear-buckets in .stVit. engaged in surveying for the Uganda Railway his cara- van was attacked by bees in the Wakamba settlements. On one occasion when the men were collected after a general stampede caused by bees one man, a Msoga, was missing. When found, " his body, owing to the innumerable stings left in him, instead of smooth black skin, appeared covered with close brown fur." The poor man was placed in the hands of a hospital assistant, but i34 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xi he died in five hours. Near Ribi, in Ukamba, the same, caravan was attacked by bees and two donkeys were stung to death. When spending an afternoon with a settler near Xnkuru I noticed some bees buzzing around a corner of the dairy and drew his attention to their presence. He then expressed his dislike of the African bee, for he said that when disturbed they stung viciously and badly : they attacked the animals in the farm-yard and even stung fowls to death. He added, the honey is not worth eating. The Ndorobo do not share this opinion : when in want of honey they climb the tree, thrust their hands into the hive, pull out the comb and drop it down to their expectant companions. The man robbing the hive is unclothed, but he does not appear to mind being stung. Now and then, if a bee stings him very badly, he will desist for a moment to kill the bee and then con- tinue to rob the hive. This statement is made on the authority of an eye-witness. Inquiry, however, shows that some natives at least take the precaution to smoke the hive, and Major Powell-Cotton gives a careful de- scription of the preparation of a fire for the purpose of smoking out bees in the Mau Forest. Hollis in his account of the Nandi gives some curious information in relation to these men and bees :— In March, 1908, he was on the point of encamping at the foot of the Nandi escarpment when his porters, pursued by bees, abandoned their loads. In the course of the afternoon three unsuccessful attempts were made to recover the loads and several porters were badly stung. At four o'clock in the afternoon a Nandi strolled into the camp and volunteered to quiet the bees, as he was of the " bee totem," and the bees belonged to him. The Nandi was stark naked and started off to the spot where the loads were, whistling loudly in the same way as these men whistle to their cattle. The bees swarmed round and on him, but beyond brushing them lightly from his arms he took no notice of them and, xi THE NDOROBO 135 still whistling loudly, proceeded to the tree which held the hive. In a few minutes he returned, none the worse for his venture, and we were able to fetch our loads. Almost all travellers in East Africa have had un- pleasant experiences with bees. Profiting by experience, caravans, when passing in the near neighbourhood of trees containing bee hives or honey-barrels, observe strict silence, for bees resent noises and quickly put a company of naked porters to flight. The poison used by the Ndorobo for their arrows and spears is obtained by boiling the leaves and branches of Acocanthera Schimperi for several hours ; the liquid is strained and then reboiled until it is thick, viscid, and like pitch. It is kept in sheets of bark for use. The poison is very powerful, for when a beast has been shot with a poisoned arrow it dies quickly. (Johnston.) An official who has seen a great deal of the Ndorobo informed me that on one occasion two men were quarrelling, and one of them held his spear in such a threatening attitude that the other seized it with his hand and received a wound in the palm. The wounded man died in a few minutes with symptoms similar to those produced by a poisonous dose of strychnia. The poison will quickly destroy an antelope or a buffalo. A. H. Neumann records the case of an Ndorobo who was unable to get within striking distance of an ele- phant, so he sat down and chewed tobacco ; on getting up to renew the chase he scratched his leg against the poisoned point of a dart " and died right away." They obtain fire by means of a fire-stick and drill. The apparatus consists of a soft piece of wood which rests upon the ground and is usually known as the fire-stick : it is furnished with rounded slots, and in the edge of each slot there is a recess in which the dust made by the drill accumulates. The end of a round stick of hard wood known as the drill, or twirling stick, is placed in one of the slots and made to revolve rapidly i36 EASTERN ETHIOPIA XI by the hands : this motion causes the soft wood to come away as fine dust, and the heat generated by the friction of the drill against the fire-stick ignites the wood-dust. Whilst rotating the drill the fire-maker keeps the stick firm by means of his toes. When the dust glows, a little dry grass is dropped over it and some cautious blowing produces a flame. All this sounds delightfully simple : an expert native will obtain sparks and a fire in half a minute, but nn I An Ndorobo obtaining fire by means of a fire-stick and drill. inexperienced man may twirl the drill for an hour and then give up the work in despair. The drill must be twirled with a uniform motion ; the blowing, to produce a flame from the glowing dust, should be steady and uniform. The smelting of iron is probably one of the oldest industries in the world, and the art was discovered independently by different races of men. The occupation of Tubal-cain exists among the natives of East Africa xi THE NDOROBO 137 and is especially cultivated by the Ndorobo. These men smelt the iron and make their own arrow-points and spear-heads. Many of the smiths employed by the .Ma^ai are Ndorobo. In villages bordering on the railway there is very little smelting carried out now because it is so easy to obtain imported iron. Thefts of iron along the railway used to be common ; the keys with which the rails are fastened to the sleepers were often stolen. It is difficult for Europeans to watch the native smiths at work, and some of their tools are regarded with great mystery, especially the bellows. The tools arc few in number, and comprise an anvil, usually of stone, a hammer, tongs, and bellows. It is not easy to obtain specimens of their tools. Ethiopian artisans, like the workmen in civilised countries, delight to surround their craft with mystery. In this they are on a par with some of the learned professions which complicate their art with the jargon of dog-Latin and complicated phraseology. The Ndorobo use the ordinary bow and arrow, but only for smaller game. These men are useful to the Masai, not only serving them as smiths, but also for the ivory they obtain in hunting the elephant : this is appropriated by the Masai. The Ndorobo are a shy race ; all their trading transactions are done secretly, or they would be robbed of everything by their stronger neighbours. They are very persistent in killing with poisoned arrows the beautiful Guereza or Colobus monkeys. They hunt this monkey because they eat its flesh and the beautiful skin finds ready purchasers. The Masai and the AVa-Kikuyu warriors use those parts of the skin with the long tufts of white hair as ornaments for their legs when in full dress, and the officers of a well-known British regiment employ the skins for sporrans. This beautiful monkey is named Colobus (from the Greek word signifying mutilated) because it has no thumb : its hands are four- 138 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xi fingered, but the thumb is sometimes indicated in adult monkeys by a nail. In one species, the red Colobus, which lives in the forests of Western Toro to the east of Ruwenzori, the thumb is present in the young monkeys, but as they become adult it dwindles till only a small nail is left : in very old animals even this disappears. The Guereza or Colobus Monkey. This conspicuously coloured animal is seen with difficulty when sitting on a tree-top whose branches are covered with the long beard moss. When the monkey jumps from one tree to another the long hair spreads out, and it looks like moss suddenly come to life. Colobus monkeys are peculiar to Africa. The common species are remarkable for their peculiar coloration and the length of their hair. The long white hair which looks like a mane on the sides of the body and the long tail with the fluffy white plume at its end are very striking. Both sexes have stiff white xi THE NDOROBO 139 whiskers. There is much variety in the coloration and in the distribution of the long hair in the different species. These monkeys are found in dense forests and live almost entirely on leaves which they tear from the branches in an impetuous manner ; they also eat eggs of birds and sometimes young birds. Though they are so conspicuously coloured when seen apart from their natural surroundings, it is surprising to realise that they are not easily seen when sitting on a branch in a tree-top on the edge of the forest, where the trunks and thick branches of the trees are thickly covered with the long beard moss. In reference to this, Schillings writes : — " Their bushy white tails hang low, and as they jump, the hair of their bodies spreads out, giving them a unique appearance, like lichen suddenly come to life." The Guereza hardly ever comes to the ground. It finds water to drink in the cavities of old trees, and its long legs are not suitable for progression on a flat surface. Nearly all attempts to bring this monkey alive to Europe have failed. One specimen brought to Germany by Schillings lived in the Zoological Gardens, Berlin, two years. XII THE KAVIRONDOS THE NATIVES OF THE KAVIRONDO COUNTRY THE natives of the Kisumu Province are of great interest. This province was formerly included in the Uganda Protectorate ; it has a total area of nearly 22,000 square miles and a population approaching one and a half millions. The Uganda Railway traverses the country between the Man Plateau and Lake Victoria, known as the Kavirondo plains, and it is ex- tremely fertile. The mountains inhabited by the war- like Nandi tribe lies to the north-east, and the natural boundary, known as the Nandi escarpment, sharply divides the Nandi and Kavirondos from each other. The Nandi were very troublesome, but a punitive expedition sent into their country in 1906 has had good consequences and made them peaceable neigh- bours ; it also allowed officers who accompanied the expedition to make some useful ethnographic observa- tions. The Nandi were a perpetual menace to the Kavirondos. This helps to explain the mud, and in some instances, stone walls around Kavirondo villages. On one occasion, during the construction of the Uganda Railway, the surveyors wished to make arrangements for buying up a Kavirondo village that lay in the way of the railway. During the negotiations the Nandi saved the surveyors this trouble by wiping out the village. The natives of the Kisumu province are very varied, but those frequently seen along the railway in this part }40 XII THE KAVIRONDOS 141 of its course are Kavirondos. As the train passes near their villages and " shambas," as the cultivated patches are called, the men, women, and children will run out to watch the train go by and race each other to reach the line. Some of them assume the curious posture of standing on one leg with the sole of the foot placed on the thigh of the other limb. Kavirondo men, women, and children go about stark naked. Married women wear a thin narrow girdle around the waist with a tassel hang- ing behind. Matrons have a short leather apron orna- mented with heads suspended from the girdle in front. The tassel, made of fibre usually obtained from a species of aloe, is about twelve inches long, dyed black, and very pliant. It is the especial mark of a married woman (Hobley). When a young girl goes on a visit to another village, she wears a tassel or tail on her journey, but must take it off on reaching her destination and not don it again until she leaves. By wearing the tail she is taken for a married woman, and is not likely to be molested by anyone she may happen to meet on the way. If a woman who has borne a child runs out of her hut in a hurry, for example, if she has been beaten, and goes into another hut without her tail, the hut she Although the girls and women of Kavirondo go about naked, married women wear a thin narrow girdle, which supports a tassel behind. EASTERN ETHIOPIA XII enters is considered unclean, and her husband has to give a goat, which is killed on the doorstep of that house, The " Mkia" or, tail is made of fibre usually obtained from, a species of aloe. Among the Karamajo the tail is decorated with beads. (British Museum. ) before it is considered to be purified ; the meat is divided between the aggressor and the owner of the house. xii THE KAVIRONDOS 143 A woman is not entitled to don the tail immediately after marriage, but has to wait a month or two ; the husband then presents her with a goat wherewith to purchase it. If a man of the same tribe touch the tail he commits a great offence, even if it be the woman's husband. Unless atonement be made by the sacrifice of a goat, it is believed that the woman will die of the insult. If it be torn off by an enemy or a stranger no harm is done. The Kavirondos have a superstition that if a woman wears a cloth round her loins she \vill have no children. J. F. Cunningham, when making a visit to one of their villages, found himself surrounded by a batch of naked young women. He thought to improve their appearance, and gave them some pieces of American sheeting to wrap round their loins, and showed them how to do it, but the girls threw the stuff away, saying, " Foreign customs ; we don't want them here." Cook in his first voyage among the South Sea Islands found the natives naked. He gave one an old shirt. To the captain's surprise the recipient bound it round his head like a turban instead of using it to cover any part of his body. The Kavirondo women are tattooed on the belly. Mr. Hobley states that all Kisumu girls are tattooed just below the navel. When a woman first becomes pregnant more elaborate tattooings are added in front as high as the breasts, and a belt of markings is carried round the waist. Tattooing is a matter of choice with the men. Major Powell-Cotton, when among the Turkana and Suk tribes which live in a country adjacent to the Kisumu Province, noticed curious little tattoo marks on the bodies of the warriors, and it was explained to him that they were a tally of the number of the people the man had killed. For the first man slain a series of lines of little scars is made on the right arm by thrusting a needle through the skin and i44 EASTERN ETHIOPIA XII snipping off the piece so raised. For the second victim a patch of similar scars is made on the shoulder, for the third on the chest, and so on. The left side is similarly . A Kavi rondo matron wears au apron made of fibre. decorated according to the number of women killed. When the man's body is covered to the waist, his own decorations are considered complete, and he continues xii THE KAVIRONDOS 145 the record on the body of his wife. The patterns aiv not coloured in the way we usually understood as tattooing. The skin is incised and then rubbed with an A Jaluo girl showing one mode of arranging the hair. She has a pattern scarified on the belly. (After Hobley. ) irritant which produces a thick scar, or keloid : this method is known as scarification. The Kavirondos are keen traders and industrious cultivators. They grow in excess of their own require- 146 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xn merits and much of the produce finds its way into the local markets, especially that of Kisumu. At this market, fish, fowls, and eggs as well as fresh milk can be obtained. They are fond of fish, which they catch by rod and line and in traps. These traps consist of converging walls of stone carried into the bed of the river at an angle of about sixty degrees : the space between the stone walls is filled with fish baskets. The fish coming down stream have their only exit blocked. Around Kisumu we found them diligently fishing in the lake, and they appeared to obtain good catches of fish by means of seines made of dried papyrus stems. A seine is a large net, one end of which is provided with sinkers and the other with floats. It hangs vertically in the water and., when its ends are brought together or drawn ashore, encloses the fish. The seines are arranged in the water by a man on a raft made of the dried stems of the papyrus, or of ambatch. The Kavirondos possess cattle and use milk, but as all readers of Thomson's description of this race know, they dilute it with cow's urine. They also clean the milk vessels with cow-dung. I made some inquiry into this matter and find it is the practice to keep the milk after it has been mixed with cow's urine for two or three days, as these people prefer to drink it sour. The Kavirondos smelt and work their own iron. Thomson has given an interesting account of their methods : he was astonished at the dexterity with which the men worked a very primitive form of bellows. He found that with very crude apparatus they could pro- duce fifteen to twenty pounds of metal in a day. The wire made here is square instead of round, but it takes a beautiful silvery polish and is used in the form of rings to ornament the arms, legs, and necks of the fashionable young men and women of the village. The blacksmiths are very clever and make weapons such as spears, and agricultural implements such as hoes. XII THE KAVIRONDOS 147 Tobacco is grown in the province and it is smoked in pipes by men and women : it is also taken as snuff. Hemp is smoked in a " hubble-bubble," which is usually made out of a gourd. Virginian tobacco has made its way and grows well in the Old World and penetrated throughout Africa. The African has no native name for it but a variation of tobacco. Pagan negroes uninfluenced by Islam smoke tobacco, those Kavirondo Women with Fish Baskets. (After Hobley. ) who have embraced Mahomedanism chew the leaf (Schweinfurth). The Kavirondo people are very industrious ; in addition to their agricultural work, they look after bees and extract the wax from the honey. They make dug-out canoes and use them to cross the rivers. Salt is obtained from the ash of burnt reeds and water plants. Pottery is made from red and black clay ; the moulding of the vessels is carried out with an eye to L 2 i48 EASTERN ETHIOPIA XII utility rather than beauty. They make baskets for fish, and neat cages for quails by plaiting grass. The quail cages are quite a feature of their villages ; they are suspended on long poles hung at a slant near the entrances and each cage contains one quail. When in use snares are set in the neighbourhood of the poles and the cage-birds are excellent decoys. These people have many strange and unmentionable customs. Though wives are obtained by purchase, it is regarded as a shameful thing if a girl is not found to The Stone Wall of a Kavirondo Village. be a virgin on her wedding day, and this matter has to be demonstrated in public. As in civilised communities, even the highest, the names of children are often suggested by some event happening at the time. For example, as Hobley points out, when Europeans were great rarities in the country, a child born on the day when a caravan camped at the village, would often be named after the leader of it, if he chanced to be well known. Thus Jcicksinis, Martinis, and Obilis are very common, XII THE KAVIRONDOS 149 the native renderings of Jackson, Martin, and Hobley. Martin was Thomson's famous headman. Livingstone recorded a similar observation in the The Interior of a Kavironclo Village. The smaller hut is a granary and access is obtained to its interior by lifting off the roof. The trees are Candelabra euphorbias. following way : African natives have no written records, but remarkable events are commemorated in the naming of children. This especially applies to the 150 EASTERN ETHIOPIA XII visit of white men in the early days of European exploration of Africa. This fashion of selecting names from passing or uncommon events is by no means confined to Ethiopians. The wife of a clergyman at Berne, Switzerland, gave birth to a daughter at dawn, An Unmarried Girl (Ndito) of the Kissii Tribe. May 19th, 1910, when Halley's comet was nearest to the earth ; the mother insisted on calling her new-born daughter Cometa in honour of the aerial visitor. The girl child was duly christened Cometa Rudolf in the presence of relations and friends in church. XII THE KAVIRONDOS The Kavirondo bury their dead in a grave dug in the middle of their own hut, but the habitation is not used again. A chief or other person of importance is buried in the floor of his own hut in a sitting position, with the head protruding just above the ground. The exposed head is covered with an earthenware pot and the principal wives watch it, until the ants have completely cleared the skull of flesh ; the skeleton is then dug up and re-interred near at hand. (Johnston.) Those who know the Kavi- rondos best ascribe to them a higher code of morality than exists in other tribes inhabiting the East Africa Protectorate, especially those which make the greatest efforts to hide their naked- ness. Judging from inquiries I made on this matter it ap- peared to me that morality is a thing which has no meaning among Africans. It is an odd contrast to their complete nakedness that the men adorn their heads with circlets of hippopotamus ivory, tusks of the wart-hogs, large tufts of black ostrich feathers, or the long tails of birds. They also construct hats of gigantic size which are worn on important occasions. These hats, made of basket- work plastered with clay, adorned with feathers, ante- lopes' horns, and similar things, are sometimes six feet high. These fantastic head-dresses always interest travellers. Kavirondo Milkmaid. 1 52 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xii Belief in spirits, good and evil, is entertained by the human race, savage and civilised. The object of nearly all forms of religion is the propitiation of spirits. The methods practised among the savage races and the tribes living around the Victoria Nyanza for effecting this are curious and quaint. That which interested me most is the habit of wearing charms, and the natives of Kavirondo possess a multitude of such objects. All primitive people are reticent on matters connected with their beliefs, and the savages in Kavirondo are equally shy on these matters. The natives of the lake shore and its islands have such anthropomorphic notions of spirits that they build little fetish-huts or spirit-shelters in the fields or woods, wherein they place offerings of food and water. There are more altars " to the unknown god " in Eastern Ethiopia than Paul found in pagan Athens. There is a little doorway always open in the back of some of the huts in order that the spirits of the departed may easily enter if they should perchance return : a beautiful idea. A charm, in the terms of the dictionary, is defined as " anything worn for its supposed efficacy to the wearer in averting ill or securing good." Those who wear them cannot always explain why such and such charms produce certain effects. Many natives near the lake plant a stick in the field and tie a feather from a white chicken to it, not with the object of scaring birds, but as a charm against hail. An old earthenware pot is stuck on the spike of the central pole of a conical hut to save the babies from squinting. The customs for appeasing evil spirits are not always so simple. Hobley, in his interesting account of Kavirondo charms, tells how he induced a chief in a confi- XII THE KAVIRONDOS dential moment to tell him the origin and character of the sets of charms he wore round his neck. They were :— 1. Iron arrow points,given him the day he was named. 2. A strip of thin iron with three holes punched in it. This signified the name of his grandmother. A. 3. A transparent rock crystal said to have been picked up in the lake. (Per- haps dropped by a visitor.) The crystal is secured in a neat leather cup. B. 4. A piece of yellowstone which was worn by his father. C. 5. Six Nya-Luo beads. G. A piece of goatskin worn to prevent chest com- plaints. 7. The dried beak of a chicken. He wore this on the advice of the medicine man to prevent sickness. 8. A bracelet of cord with four small sticks inserted in it. The sticks are supposed to prevent the wearer from taking harm if touched by one of his children. D. 9. Portion of a marine shell : worn as an orna- ment. E. 10. A tiny bag of skin reputed to contain medicine for rheumatism. Kavironclo Charms. i54 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xii Whilst I was writing these things, a clever, pretty lady came into my library. She was adorned with ornaments, bangles, and charms, although deeply and conscientiously devout. Among the ornaments the sub- joined may be compared with those of the old Ja-Luo savage :— 1. A tiny locket with a design in blue enamel which was given on the occasion of her confirmation. 2. A silver medal embossed with the figure of St. Anthony of Padua, Worn with the hope that if she lost anything, this Saint would help her to regain it. 3. A pig carved out of Irish bog wood. This had a piece of its leg broken off on the very day her husband asked her hand in marriage. She still wears it " for luck." 4. A piece of turquoise supposed to come from a mastodon's tooth. 5. The key of a dispatch box suspended on a metal label impressed with the family coat of arms. 6. An image of the Virgin Mary carved in ivory. 7. A copper ring worn to cure "nerves." Bought from a pedlar in Venice. This fellow had the crural muscles and nerve prepared from a frog and laid on a zinc plate ; whenever he laid the copper ring 011 the plate and allowed it to touch the nerve, the muscles moved. It amused me to watch the clever way this cheap-jack gulled the men and women. O 8. A whistle to call cabs. 9. A vanity case, containing a powder-puff, face powder, and a looking glass. 10. She also wore a small silk bag containing eucalyptus leaves as a protection against chicken pox. Almost all tourists in British East Africa are interested in the ornaments worn by naked natives. It has been pointed out already (p. 120) that the ear ornaments possess tribal and social significance ; it is also clear that the apparently commonplace adornments XII THE KAVIRONDOS of these naked people are full of meaning. In pondering on the superstitions of Ethiopian savages let us not forget that palmists, soothsayers, and mystery-mongers flourish in the populous cities of Europe. Note. — I am indebted to Mr. F. L. Henderson for the photo- graphs of the Kavirondo villages. Doorway in the Wall of a Kavirondo Village. XIII ETHIOPIAN FASHIONS IN HAIR-DRESSING THE various forms of hair-dressing adopted by the native tribes of Africa would furnish material for a monograph. The social state of an individual, as well as his tribe, is indicated by the style in which the hair is arranged. In Africa the conditions of hair-dressing are the reverse of those which prevail in civilised countries, for it is the men who affect to have their hair dressed in extravagant fashions ; the women adopt the simplest of all modes, for they shave each other's scalps, the eyebrows, and other regions of the body. African women perform all the menial work of the village and have no time to spare for hair-dressing. Among the Kikuyu men some of the styles are very elaborate. A common plan consists in rolling the hair into curls around pieces of bast. Heads treated in this way resemble the backs of a French poodle. Others imitate that adopted by the Masai warriors, in which the hair is thickly anointed with grease, especially mutton fat, and red earth. Thus a heavy shower of rain would be disagreeable ; in order to meet such an emergency the men carry the dried paunch of a sheep or goat with them, and in wet weather wear it like a night-cap. When not in use, this cap, which can be folded up into a small compass, is tied round the waist. When a Kikuyu man has nothing to do he sits in the sun and plucks stray hairs out of his body with forceps with the same industry that monkeys hunt their skins for fleas. 156 xni ETHIOPIAN FASHIONS IN HAIR-DRESSING 157 Among the Nandi the mode of treating the hair is full of meaning. The women and children have their heads regularly shaved, but in some instances a patch of short hair is left on the crown. The warriors let their hair grow long and plait the front locks into tags, which are allowed to hang over the forehead, like the Masai. Occasionally it is plaited into one big pig-tail behind. The Nandi also shave their eyebrows, and hair on the remainder of the body is plucked out. They shave their heads as a sign of grief, and throw the hair after removal in special directions, or carefully hide it. Many of these silly customs remind us of the superstitions held in many English villages concerning the disposal of teeth after extraction. Among the Nandi there are special rules concerning the treatment of hair, such as shaving as a sign of mourn- ing, and of defeat in war. It is also of significance in circumcision, and in relation to marriage and child-birth. Many of these matters have been elucidated with much care by Hollis in his useful and valuable work on the language and folk-lore of the Nandi (1909). Some of the tribes, neighbours to the Kavirondos, dress their hair in the extraordinary style of the Suk and Turkana. The specimen I have been able to examine, thanks to the kindness of Major Powell- Cotton, belonged to a Karamojo. The hair is trained A man of Kikuyu wearing a cap made out of a goat's paunch, to protect him from rain. iS8 EASTERN ETHIOPIA XIII into what is known as a " chignon " in the following way: The youths allow the hair to grow long and rub into it grease, clay, and cow-dung which makes it felt. A Masai wearing his hair in the form of a pig-tail drawn over his fore- head. (From a photograph by F. L. Henderson.) When a man dies the hair is cut from his head and distributed among his sons, who incorporate this legacy into their own chignons. This flattened mass of hair on some men reaches to the loin. The exterior of the chignon is ornamented with feathers, and at the extreme xin ETHIOPIAN FASHIONS IN HAIR-DRESSING 159 end there is a curled strip of rhinoceros horn : the feathers which are used to adorn it are not stuck into the hair, but larger quills, about two inches long, are firmly fixed into the chignon to form sockets for the quills of the ornamental feathers, which can be in- serted or removed as easily as a whip is placed in or removed from its socket. In some large chignons, the margins of the hair mass are neatly turned in towards the neck, and the recess behind the fold thus produced is used sometimes as a pocket wherein the man can lodge odds and ends such as tobacco, a snuff-box, a scratcher, or the like. These men wear a skin cape over their bare shoul- ders ; when it rains the cape is thrown over their heads to protect the chig- non. They also carry a little two-legged stool to place under the neck when they lie down : this pre- vents damage to the chig- non. Reference has been made to the curved piece of rhinoceros horn at the end of the chignon. Among the Karamojo this hook-like adornment subserves an amus- ing purpose. " When the warriors dance and the girls A Nandi dandy with his hair rolled into small curls. i6o EASTERN ETHIOPIA XIII of the village look on, the warrior as he passes a certain damsel leans forward out of the dancing ring and catches her round the neck with the hook. If she A Suk with his hair worked into the form of a flat chignon. The little stool is placed under the neck when sleeping to prevent injury to the chignon. A Shilluk with his hair dressed in a fashion which finds favour with the dandies of his tribe, and standing like a stork on one leg. xin ETHIOPIAN FASHIONS IN HAIR-DRESSING 161 wishes to resist she can easily break away, but this sort of identification of a girl by the dancing warrior occasions great mirth. The girls press quite closely to the dancing ring." (Cunningham.) The Shilluks living on the west bank of the White Nile adopt a somewhat similar mode. The hair is shaved from the front part of the head, but at the back it is allowed to grow and felt in such a way that it looks at a distance as if the man had a broad-brimmed cloth hat stuck on the back of his head. Close at hand it resembles the nimbus which surrounds the head of a saint in pictures, and the felted hair like a nimbus is deficient at the nape of the neck. The Dinkas around Bor, on the east bank of the Bahr-el-Gebel, adopt a different plan, for they encourage the hair to grow long and stand on end. Some shave the scalp except a strip two inches broad along the middle of the head extending from the forehead to the nape of the neck. In this zone the hair is trained to stand on end, and, as it is often two or three inches long, produces a con- dition resembling the crisp horse-hair on the crest of a Grecian helmet, or, the mane of an ass. The Dodinga dress their hair in an unusual way : — The hair is daubed with clay and made into a mass which is moulded round the head into the shape of an inverted bowl. The hair is left attached to the crown. As the hair grows, the mass loosens until it looks like a big bonnet. The chief man covers the convex surface of this mass of hair and clay with discs of leather. Each disc has an average diameter of two inches and on the leather they sew white and red beads in a spiral pattern. This extraordinary fashion of hair-dressing has been described and figured by Major Powell-Cotton. There is an excellent specimen of the Dodinga chignon in the British Museum ornamented with rows of shells. Bleached hair is a favourite fashion with some of the Somali dandies. This alteration in colour is produced by plastering the hair with quicklime. The lime M l62 EASTERN ETHIOPIA XIII is obtained by pounding and 1 turning the shells of large molluscs. A head-dress in the fashion of the Dodinga. Kauri shells are worked into the hair. (British Museum. ) A fantastic method of arranging the hair pre- vails among the Mashukulumbi, a tribe living along the Kafue river (Rhodesia). Selous travelled in this xin ETHIOPIAN FASHIONS IN HAIR-DRESSING 163 district (1888) and described the men. They go naked, not from necessity, for they have large herds of cattle and hides, but it is the fashion among them. Some of the Mashukulumbi have their hair, as well as that removed from the heads of their wives, worked into a tall cone two and a half feet high. The base of the cone is fixed to the back of the head, and made to curve forwards so that its apex is straight above the head, and to it a strip from the horn of a sable antelope is fixed. This strip of horn is strong enough to stand upright, yet waves with every movement of the head. A cone of hair and horn sometimes measures five feet in height. In building these cones the hair is made to felt with grease, and as it can- not be washed when once worked up in this way, soon swarms with vermin. A metallic stylet is stuck in the tuft to serve as a scratcher when the vermin are too active. Selous shrewdly remarks that men with hair dressed in this way must necessarily live in an open country ; they never could get through bush. I have had an opportunity of examining two of these cones from Mr. Selous's museum. Mr. Long, who re- cently visited the Mashukulumbi, informed me that this odd The head of a Mashukulumbi with a fantastic chignon fifty inches high. The cone is formed of hair and the terminal section is a strip of horn from the sable antelope. (From a speci- men kindly lent by Mr. F. C. Selous.) M 2 164 EASTERN ETHIOPIA XIII The scalp of a Ja-luo man with a pattern shaved upon it. (After Hobley.) practice of arranging the hair is dying out because the neighbouring tribes laugh so much at their grotesque appearance. The fact that this fashion is disappearing induced me to mention it in this book. Dr. Holub visited the Mashukulumbi country 1883-1887 and published an interesting account of the natives. His book contains numerous figures of their curious chignons. A singular method of shav- ing the head prevails among the Ja-luo. If a man kills an enemy in war, in order to propitiate the spirit of the dead man, the slayer shaves his head for three days on returning to the village. The men also shave their heads in curious patterns. The Ja-luo ornament their ears in a peculiar way. They insert a num- ber of rings along the helix, sometimes as many as fifteen may be counted in one ear. The rings bear a small bead known as Nya-luo ; the majority are blue. They differ from the usual trade article. The natives state that they find them in the Maragolia Hills after a The ear of a Ja-luo chief ornamented i . i i with rings bearing beads. heavy thunderstorm ; they xni ETHIOPIAN FASHIONS IN HAIR-DRESSING 165 believe the beads descend with the rain. These special beads have attracted much attention since Mr. Hobley described them. It is extremely probable that they found their way up the Nile, for Mr. Hobley saw in the British Museum blue, yellow, and jasper beads. identical in appearance to the Nya-luo beads, from Ancient Egypt and some buried cities in Beluchistan. Cunningham, J. F. Hobley, C. W. References. .. Uganda and its Peoples. London, 1904. , . Anthropological Studies in Kavirondo and Nandi. The Journal of the Anthropo- logical Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1903, p. 325. Eastern Uganda. An Ethnological Svrcey. Hid., 1902, p. 26. Powell-Cotton, P. H. G. In Unknown Africa. London, 1904. .. Travel and Adventure in Africa. London, 1 903. . . Von der Capstadt ins Land der Mashu- kn/ninbe. Wien, 1890. Selous, F. C. Holub, E. XIV ON SAFARI — AN EAST AFRICAN PHRASE SIGNIFYING A CARAVAN JOURNEY APART from the Uganda Railway roads do not exist in Eastern Ethiopia : there are tracks made by the bare feet of the natives, Swahili porters, and by cattle. The native tracks from village to village or to distant districts only permit the passage of man and beast. Wheeled vehicles for travelling purposes are non- existent. It is impossible to use horses on account of tsetse flies and ticks. A wheel in the Rift Valley was formerly as big a novelty as a polar bear would be on the Victoria Nyanza. The pack animals for a long journey are Swahili porters. Consequently, in the days before the construc- tion of the railway, a journey to distant parts of the country was, and in many instances still is, a serious business. The traveller must take with him not only food, and often water, changes of raiment and other- personal effects, but also tents, bedding, cooks, cooking- pans, and other requisites for preparing food ; the quantity and character of the supplies will be regulated by the size and length of time occupied by the journey. When the safari is run for trading purposes, material for bartering with the natives must be carried ; for example, beads and coloured cotton goods ; iron, brass, copper-wire, and things useful to the natives, and for which in return they wrill be willing to give food, tusks, and hides. East African natives are no longer sold into xiv ON SAFARI 167 bondage, but in past years slavo were important articles of trade. A safari is often organised for hunting purposes : then, in addition to the hunter, it will include native trackers, gunl>earers, skinners, and men to assist in rinding game, to drive it to the hunter if necessary, to follow it when wounded and act as retrievers when it is shot. In fact the trained natives take the place of sporting dogs in Europe, but they are more useful as they bear guns and carry the quarry to camp. These men also skin the animals and birds, and some are able to prepare the hides and skins for preservation. Sometimes a safari will be run merely for pleasure, much in the same way as a camping party or a picnic may be arranged in England, but there is no wayside or general store to furnish eggs, butter, milk, or bread when the caravan runs short of food. The chief object of concern to the headman is water, and in moving camp from one place to another, it is a prime necessity to select a spot where water exists. The length of a day's journey when " on safari " is invariably determined by the locality of water holes and rivers. Every safari or caravan is armed, for in Eastern Ethiopia travellers are liable to be attacked by natives. Firearms are also required for protection against wild beasts, as well as to provide food for the porters. One of the objects of my visit was to obtain first- hand some knowledge of the country, the natives, the beasts, the birds, and the trees ; therefore the safari was arranged to meet these intentions. It consisted of Dr. Comyns Berkeley, Mr. H. F. Henderson, and myself ; two white hunters and my servant, accompanied by a headman and eighty natives. The composite character of this crowd may be inferred from the following list :— The headman and the gunbearers were Somalis : the tracker was an Ndorobo, the cook a Goanese, and the skinner a Kikuyu man : the table boys and the syce 168 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xiv were Wakamba : the three camp policemen (or Wu- askari) and the stable boys we employed for the mules were Kavirondos, and some fifty or sixty Swahili porters carried the loads. The Swahili porter is the pack animal of East Africa and he carries the load upon his head. The average load for a porter is 60 pounds, and he will carry it 10 — 15 miles a day without complaint over grass plains, through scrub, marshes or forest regions. The porter walks with bare feet; he may often be seen, with the load on his head, pick up a stick, a cigarette, or some similar trifle from the ground, with his toes. It is a fashion in some parts of England to allow children to run about with bare feet. The chief draw- back to this custom in civilised communities is the frequency with which the skin on the under surface of the big toe and the ball of the foot is cut with glass. The chief enemy of the barefooted porter when walking through the forest and scrub is the long, strong and sharp thorns wrhich lie about the tracks. It is quite common when the caravan is on the move to come across a porter sitting by the side of the track endeavouring to extract a thorn from his foot. As soon as the porters arrive at the place selected for the camp the loads are quickly dropped. One set of men fix up the tents ; others obtain wood from the neighbouring forest ; the cook and his staff make a fire, and when the boys return writh water the kettle soon boils and efforts are made to prepare the meal. The boys in charge of the " chop " boxes arrange the table, and when things go well, by the time the sun slips behind the rim of the world for the night, the camp fires are lighted to warm men's bodies and to scare away marauding beasts. A good appetite is the best sauce and dispels squeamishness : the dinner is a funny meal to those accustomed to the luxurious restaurants and hotels of large cities, but after a long wralk and when thoroughly tired from hunting and xiv ON SAFARI 169 exertion in the fresh air the food is eaten with fun and often with relish. In due course a survey is made of the camp to see that the tires arc blazing brightly and that there is a sufficient supply of wood : the askari comes on duty armed with his rifle : the openings of the tents are fastened, and, tired with the day's exertions, all sleep soundly in spite of the screeching of hyaenas, the occasional grunting of a hungry lion, or the regular snoring of a companion deep in sleep in an adjacent tent. \\ 'c had some interesting days whilst on safari, and in order to give the reader some idea how the time was spent a typical day will be described. For the first few days everything seemed wild and strange, but we did our best to be contented with the new situation. A\re started at Molo with the hope of obtaining a buffalo and then moved down to Njaro and finally reached Lake Nakuru. As soon as the sun began to "decorate the morning sky," which is the picturesque Masai phrase for the dawn, the tents were opened, and we bathed, shaved, dressed, and had breakfast. One evening we were obliged to camp at a place where there was no water : when my servant awoke me in the morning, he informed me that the getting up would be a very simple affair, for there would be no bathing, washing, or shaving. As soon as breakfast w^as over, we mounted our mules and went off with the hunter, tracker, gunbearer, and boys. We had rifles, shot guns, and field glasses. Our most delightful hunting ground was the neighbourhood of Lake Nakuru. We made our way carefully through long grass to the north -west corner of the lake and descended the steep and precipitous rocks which exist on this side to the lake shore. Among these rocks we found the graceful Reed-buck and succeeded in obtaining some excellent specimens. On reaching the edge of tlit1 water we made our way to the northern 1 7o EASTERN ETHIOPIA xiv end, which has a sandy shore bordered with thick reed- beds, interrupted here and there with hippopotamus tracks. Behind these reed-beds there are dense thickets of thorn trees and spaces covered with green grass around the spot where the river Hows into the lake. Here we were able to satisfy ourselves of the nature and variety of the animal life occupying this dense thicket around the mouth of the river, for the soft sandy ooze Among the rocks we found many reed -buck and succeeded in obtaining some good heads. was covered with tracings more thickly than the columns of the great temple at Thebes, and they were easier to read. Here were the marks of innumerable birds' feet : — wading birds, duck, goose, ibis, and the pink feathers and bones of the flamingo. Among these footmarks by the edge of. and leading into the reed-beds, were the huge footprints of the hippo- potamus, large enough when fille_d with water to serve. ON SAFARI as a bath for a baby. In many places, in contrast to such huge depressions, were the clear-cut impressions made by the hoofs of the water-buck. Whilst we were discussing them I happened to look across the reed-beds, and within thirty yards of us there stood two of these The Flamingo. beautiful beasts — male and female — watching us between the trees, and as motionless as if they formed part of the thicket. These antelopes stood quite still as long as we were simply content to watch them, but the instant the gunbearer moved to hand me a rifle they were off like the wind. Proceeding along the shore we 1 72 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xiv saw the recent footmarks of a lion ; this warned us not to visit the lake unarmed. One morning the lake was visited by an enormous flock of flamingoes. We gradually crept along the cduv of the reed-bed to obtain a good view of them. The birds were so numerous that they covered about an acre of the lake. On approaching them a few took wing, and as each rose in the air it had the clumsy appearance of an aeroplane. Suddenly a gun was fired; The Head of a Wart- Hog. This is the ugliest mammal in Ethiopia. this huge flock of birds rose on the wino- and the <_> ( i rustling noise made by the flapping of their huge wings reminded me of wind suddenly striking and rushing through the tall trees of a forest : " And when they went I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters" (Ezek., chap. i. 24). The feast of colour, the magnificent cloud of rose pink which covered the lake as these birds sailed across it, defies description. xiv ON SAFARI 173 Towards midday we returned to the camp for shelter from the heat and to obtain rest and lunch, where we remained until four o'clock, and after refreshing our- selves with tea, sallied forth again. We succeeded in shooting the rock rabbit (hyrax or coney) which lived in great numbers among the rocks near the camp, wart-hogs, guinea fowls, and a lesser bustard. The birds were welcome additions to our larder. The wart-hogs afforded us some fun. The tracker caught sight of two hogs in the long grass ; they were standing side by side in such a way that the snout of one hog was towards the tail of the other. One of the party fired a rifle at them with the intention of securing the two animals with one bullet. The Somali proverb, " to aim is not to hit," applied here, for the bullet grazed the snout of one hog and the buttocks of the other, and so irritated both, that when the boys went to hunt them out of the long grass they \\crt' ch;iM'd by the hogs. The Somalis kept close to the mins, and as the angry animals persisted in following the boys, it became necessary to shoot both hogs. It is dangerous to hunt big animals in long grass, especially when they are wounded : records of lion, buffalo, and rhinoceros shooting are eloquent in this direction. In order to show how completely big animals may be concealed in long grass, I may mention that on one occasion a topi (Damaliscus jimele) was shot on a slope covered with tall grass : we left a boy to skin it whilst we returned to the camp for carriers to bring in the meat and hide. On returning to the spot where the antelope was being flayed, I could not see the boys or the topi, fifteen yards away, although I was on the back of a mule. On one occasion whilst moving through long grass after a herd of impalla, one of the most beautiful and graceful of all the antelope family, we heard the crack of rifles in a neighbouring forest where we knew our friends had gone for buffaloes ; we 174 EASTERN ETHIOPIA quickly left the grass land and sought the society of trees in order to avoid the rush of the stampeding herd. The animals passed within 200 yards, but the grass was so high that it concealed us. On this occasion the O clever way in which a herd of buffalo directed by Mowghli effected the destruction of the tiger, Shere Khan, as related by Kipling in the absorbing Jungle The Impalla. ^Epycero* mtlampn*. One of the most graceful of the antelope family, gazelle abounds in the Rift Valley. This Book, came forcibly to my mind. None of us was anxious to be trampled to death. A friend related to me a story in which an Ndorobo, whilst hunting a Buffalo, was attacked and so crushed by the angry brute that the remains could only be recognised as those of a man by the fact that one of the hunter's feet stuck out of the mangled mass. xn' ON SAFARI There are interesting cats in East Africa besides lions, leopards, and cheetahs. Whilst in the Rift A 'alley we had opportunities of seeing the Serval Cat. It is a pretty but untamable animal and very destruc- tive to poultry. A settler hearing a noise in his fowl- house one evening sent a lad to see that the birds were safe and not disturbed by cats. The boy returned to say that he had made them safe by shutting and The Serval Cat. Pretty but fierce and untamable, and very destructive to poultry. fastening the door of the fowlhouse. In the morning twenty out of twenty-three birds lay dead and a Serval Cat sat on the cross beam. The boy had shut the animal in with the birds. The kittens of the Serval Cat are ferocious little brutes ; they scratch arid bite vehemently. We saw a native in charge of one at Njoro, and the skin of his belly was freely cross-hatched by the claws of the pretty 176 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xiv }>ut fierce kitten in his charge. This unchecked scratch- ing seemed to distress him very little. We were bound to shoot a number of animals in order to supply our camp with meat. Porters when on safari are supplied with flour made from mealies, and they expect meat. When an opportunity offers these men will eat a very large quantity of flesh, and if the porters be kept well supplied with meat they are contented, happy, and not so likely to desert the camp. Certain precautions are necessary in regard to the religious prejudices of the Mahomedans. The Somali gunbearers carry a large sheath knife in their belts for skinning animals when shot. When an antelope, zebra, or buffalo is shot and it is safe to approach, the Somali runs up with the object of cutting the animal's throat before it dies : in such circumstances the Mahomedans will eat the flesh. Should the animal cease to breathe before the throat is cut by a Mahom- edan, none will eat the flesh, but he will flay and disembowel the animal for such of the natives who, not being followers of Mahomet, may choose to use it. The high grass which abounds in the Rift Valley is the favourite haunt of the rhinoceros. This mammal, like the elephant, is a huge, ungainly representative of a giant fauna which was formerly common on the earth. So numerous are the rhinoceroses in some parts of East Africa that they are a nuisance to caravans. Gregory, when making a journey near Baringo, had to pass through scrub and thorny thickets. His porters were charged several times in one day by these colossal animals. He writes : — They lay asleep, until awakened by the noise we made, and then, frightened and muddled, they charged wildly in all directions through the scrub. These things happened in 1893. tiiij-Aiiix. — During our journey from Njaro xiv ON SAFARI 177 to Lake Nakuru, the grass over a large part of the country had been set on fire, and in many directions it was burning briskly. In the districts traversed by our porters several elliptical areas of plain soil among the blackened grass attracted my attention. These patches measured in most instances three yards in the major and two in the minor axis : they were sunk slightly below the level of the surrounding ground and were as free from grass as a newly-polished tombstone, and the surface was as smooth as if it had been finished by a plasterer's trowel. In the first instance I was interested in these smooth patches because on many of them we found game tracks, such as footprints of the impalla, water-buck, hartebeest (kongoni), or the rhinoceros. These footprints stood out as plainly as the imprints of a hare, polecat, or rat on snow-covered ground. On examining the bare patches more carefully, I found two or three circular holes surrounded by a ridge of dust, an inch high, from which brown ants issued ; near the edge of the patch there was a heap of husks, and on examining them they proved to be the husks of many varieties of grass seeds. When the patch was situated in an area where the grass had been closely burnt it was easy to make out ant-paths radiating in many directions from the clear area, and the ants laden with seed could be seen travelling along them. I have re-read carefully Moggridge's description of harvesting-ants ; I have no doubt that these elliptical patches of grass-free ground are due to the energy of some species of these interesting and industrious insects. The smooth appearance of the patch is due to the persistent traffic of multitudes of these small insects. It is curious that the grass and other seeds in these underground granaries do not germinate. No satis- factory explanation has yet been advanced to account for this fact, and I have no theory to offer. These elliptical ant-grounds were numerous in the grass land around Lake Nakuru. They were clear of small stones, N i78 EASTERN ETHIOPIA XIV twills. Iraves and grass, and were fairly uniform in o size. The lake had an irresistible attraction for us, and in whichever direction the party started it always found its way round to some part of the lake shore. It was a 1 \\avs instructive and often of absorbing interest to watch the birds in the thickets, the wading birds in the The Silent Lake, the home of the hippopotamus. The birds are the sacred Ibis. water, and in the cool of the afternoon the school of hippopotamuses in the lake. These huge animals cautiously approached the shore for the purpose of reaching the rich green grass which grew so luxuriantly along the banks of the terminal section of the river : then they would slowly raise their huge heads, which look like logs of wood floating on the surface of the XIV ON SAFARI 179 water, survey the landing place, and open their mouths as if yawning at being kept waiting for their meal of grass. On one occasion we stayed so long by the lake that darkness came on before we reached the camping ground : those in charge were anxious on our account and fired a warning gun, to which we replied, and were thankful for the guidance of a lamp which the askari had fixed in a tnv. The kitten of the Serval Cat, though pretty, is a ferocious little brute ; it scratches and bites vehemently. N 2 XV AN UNCAGED ZOO IN London — indeed, in all large towns possessing a well-stocked menagerie — it is a favourite form of enjoyment, and certainly one full of instruction, to pass a few hours on a fine Sunday watching the birds, beasts, and reptiles in their cages. The majority of civilised human beings are fond of animals, and it may be truly written that those who are fond of animals rarely lack friends. In many parts of Eastern Ethiopia, beasts, birds, reptiles, and insects are so abundant that the country has been described, and not undeservedly, as an uncaged Zoo, and I will describe in this chapter how we spent a Sunday in it. There are certain inconveniences attendant on walking among uncaged animals. Some mammals prefer certain localities : this is especially the case with antelopes. The kudu and the oryx are found around Lake Baringo. but are rarely seen in the neighbourhood of Lake Nakuru. Even Grant's gazelles vary in small particulars in different parts of the country. Moreover, the herds of game are always on the move ; they may abound in one district for a few weeks or months, and then, for reasons which to us are obscure, move away to some distant place. In order to see all the animals in this uncaged Zoo, the visitor must travel sometimes great distances, endure much fatigue, often hardship, and exhibit patience in its best form. In wandering about he must also use eyes and ears to find the animals, and when 180 xv AN UNCAGED ZOO 181 found they are not labelled. It is not easy to recognise animals on a plain covered with tall, dry, yellow grass and boulders of black rock, for under such conditions the yellow skins of lions and hyaenas look much alike. Before leaving camp we fed the kites and buzzards. These birds are real scavengers and pick up offal and fragments of meat about the camp. Some years ago in India I occasionally amused myself by throwing pieces of meat and liver high in the air in order to attract the keen-sighted kites. One of the birds would rly swiftly and catch the meat with its talons before it could reach the ground. The visual acuteness of these birds is wonderful, for I often tried to deceive them by throwing a potato or a small bread-roll into the air, alternately with the meat, but never succeeded. The rapidity with which the kites in the neighbourhood realised that feeding was in progress is remarkable, for within a few minutes after the game began, the birds became so numerous that the feeder would be surrounded by a living vortex of kites. An amusing practical joke is played by the Indian boys on the kite by spreading a blanket on the ground and laying a piece of meat upon it ; the bird attempts to seize the meat and its sharp claws penetrate the blanket ; whilst thus entangled the boys throw the blanket over it. It is contrary to their religious principles to kill these useful scavengers, so they are contented with pulling out a few feathers and setting the bird at liberty. Some fun is also obtained when the kites are flying around by placing a piece of meat on the turban of an onlooker ; suddenly the kite swoops, and whilst seizing the meat the claws become entangled in the turban ; the surprise of the man is great when he sees his turban sailing through the air. There is indeed a substantial basis for the method in which Sinbad the Sailor was transported by the Roc. In India, where the kitchen is at some distance from the house, it is no uncommon thing for a watchful kite 1 82 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xv to appropriate a roasted fowl or joint during its transfer from the kitchen to the dining-room. On one occasion whilst I was lunching out of doors near Jeypore, a predaceous kite swooped over the table and flew away with the roasted fowl, the only substantial element in the meal. English visitors in eastern lands usually take much interest in kites. Four or five hundred years ago these birds were nearly as common in London as they are to-day in Cairo. One writer of that period (Turner) states that they were so rapacious as to snatch meat from the hands of children in our towns and cities. The toy known as the kite takes its name from these birds. There is a Masai proverb which runs, " Do not show the hawk your bow or he will fly away." A beautiful hawk sat on a dead branch high in the tree watching our party proceeding to the lake. We stayed beneath the tree and it was decided to obtain the hawk for a specimen. The instant the gun was handed to me by the gun-bearer the bird flew away. This happened on several occasions and I am sure hawks are as knowing as rooks in regard to guns. It is the practice of many settlers on the high grass plateaus around the Kikuyu and the Mau escarpments, as well as in the Rift Valley, to fire the long dry grass. This method destroys young trees as well as ticks ; such grass-fires sometimes get out of hand and destroy out- buildings as well as settlers' houses. On two occasions we were afraid that the fire would involve our camp in destruction. When the coarse dry grass is burnt off just before the rain is due, in a short time young green grass makes its appearance and is visited by zebras, antelopes, arid similar animals. As soon as the grass is burnt, the blackened area left by the fire is visited by large birds such as hawks, kites, secretary birds, and bustards : they hunt for little birds, grasshoppers, locusts, and other winged insects which, being singed by the fire, are unable to fiy. xv AN UNCAGED ZOO 183 The great black and white bustard (Eupodotis kori), \vhen disturbed, has a curious way of flying around in concentric circles. When alarmed bastards rise clumsily on the wing and make a wide circuit before alighting, but if followed up, the birds make a narrower circuit and so on until they finally alight near the spot from which they were originally disturbed. Taking advan- tage of this fact, we were able, without much trouble, to secure some of these large birds for our larder. When roasted the flesh of a bustard is as delectable as that of a turkev. These large birds weigh more than w t \ventv pounds, and examples have been recorded which weighed twenty-five pounds. Such birds will have an expanse of wing measuring eight feet in width. There is a smaller species of bustard which we obtained at Njaro. I was very interested in the bustard because two species formerly lived in England. The Great Bustard (Olis torcfo) only became extinct in Norfolk about 1838. The smaller bustard (Otis tetrax] occasionally straggles to our shores. The museum at Salisbury contains two stuffed specimens of the Great Bustard, said to be the last examples of this bird shot on Salisbury Plain. When the gizzard-; were opened they contained, among other stones, some Hint arrow heads. I have seen the Great Bustard stalking about the fields in the south-west of Spain, near Utrera. These birds eat berries, seed, larvae, molluscs, frogs, young corn, and juicy plants. A live frog swallowed by a bustard must have an uncomfortable time among the stones in this bird's gizzard. Imagine the agony of being slowly ground to death in a gizzard-mill. The Bee-eaters, with their wonderful coloration, graceful forms, and activity, could not fail to attract the attention of the least observant. It was delightful to watch one sitting on the twigs of a leafless tree, and then see it suddenly dart in the air and snap an insect on the wing, like a flycatcher, and return to the bush 1 84 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xv again. Bee-eaters are easy birds to watch, for they are not shy, and allow a close approach. Their colours are best displayed when the bird is on the wing. The Nubian Bee-eater is famous for its crimson plumage. When flying in the sun it is a brilliant object, but after death the colour rapidly fades. No one can realise the splendour of this bird from a prepared skin. Bee-eaters are very common in Ethiopia, and are often seen in flocks. The ground between our camp and the narrow belt of green grass, reeds, and thorn trees fringing the lake was covered with tall dry grass in many places four feet high. When grass is tall and grows uniformly over the ground, walking through it is tiresome. Often it grows in small tussocks, and appears to form rows much like wheat when sown with a drill ; in this case the mules find their way easily through it. The ground was soft, sandy, and full of holes, some of them very big. The large holes were excavated by wart-hogs, and by an animal odd in shape, grotesque in appearance, with a name to match, Orycteropus. This funny animal digs holes in the sand with its feet, as its Greek name implies. The settlers call it the antbear. The Dutch settlers in Cape Colony many years ago named it aard-vark, or earth-pig, but it belongs to the same group as the ant-eaters. This animal feeds on ants ; it is harmless, timid, nocturnal in habits, and its teeth have sorely puzzled anatomists on account of their peculiar shape. The hole made by the aard-vark is too small to accommodate the wart-hog, and in order to save himself trouble the hog appro- priates a hole already excavated by his neighbour, and enlarges it to suit himself. The wart-hog is a lazy fellow, and only digs a hole just big enough to lodge his body ; as he cannot turn round in the hole, he must enter it tail first. A large number of the holes are unoccupied, for wart-hogs often change their residence. It is easy to know which holes are " to let," for as soon XV AN UNCAGED ZOO 185 as a hole is deserted, a spider spins its web across the entrance, then flies, attracted by the odour left by the pigs, are caught in this net. and so the cunning spinner thrives. The settlers like sportsmen to shoot the wart-hogs, for the holes they make in the ground are uncomfortable and awkward places for the feet and legs of men, horses, mules, and cattle. The hog's flesh some men find palatable, but it is tough to eat ; moreover, it is useless The Earth Pig, Aard-vark, or Antbear. for the porters, as many of these men are Mahomedans and refuse to eat it on religious grounds. These pigs are named wart-hogs on account of the fleshy prominences on their faces. They are ugly, re- pulsive-looking creatures, and when irritated can inflict nasty and even dangerous wounds with their tusks. The wart-hog is very common in the grass lands around the lake. The natives are glad to obtain the tusks ; they use them as ornaments when in full dress. i86 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xv On the way to the lake, whilst following the winding course of the river, a sing-sing or Defassa waterbuck was shot ; the bullet broke its spine near the sacrum and paralysed the animal's hindquarters. As we approached the wounded buck it raised its head, which was ornamented with a pair of horns thirty inches long, and snorted defiance at us. Some successful photo- graphs were taken of the noble animal, and then it was The Sing-Sing or Defassa Wat jrbuck. killed by a bullet through the heart. When the animal was being flayed the skinner found a Snider rifle bullet embedded in its flank ; it must have been in the animal's body many months. Poor beast, it could not escape its fate, but it was a welcome addition to the camp larder, for though the meat is tough the porters find it palatable. During the process of skinning and disembowelling the vultures and kites were flying in circles overhead, xv AN UNCAGED ZOO 187 ready to pick up any fragments that might be left on the ground ; they obtained very few, for the native is very fond of the viscera, especially the paunch and the soft fat which forms the omentum and fills the mesentery. Conspicuous coloration of animals has been the favourite theme of many naturalists. No one should argue on such matters from observations made in a menagerie or a museum. It is difficult to imagine a more conspicuously coloured mammal than a zebra. The large black and white stripes seemed specially designed to betray it. On one occasion as we were pro- ceeding to the lake the tracker gave us the sign to dismount, and pointed out some shadowy forms grazing quietly under a conical grass-covered hill. " Ngombe " (cattle) said the hunter. We moved a hundred yards closer, looked at them again through the field glass, and then realised that it was a herd of zebra. Many times whilst wandering about this extraordinary Kift Valley or watching from the train in the late afternoon, I have been surprised at the peculiar shadowy tint assumed by these brilliantly striped animals when stand- ing against a forest or some tall bluff as a background. h is worth remembering that some of the beautifully coloured fish which live in the waters around coral islands are striped, and when they assume tints which make them inconspicuous the colour becomes diffuse ; thus they can assume a striped or a diffused coloration apparently at will. The shadow-like tint of the zebra in the fading daylight is an optical illusion. When Joseph Thomson traversed Masailand in 1883 he met zebras in thousands, and writes : — " It was a magnificent sight to watch these beautiful animals thundering along in great squadrons ; here stretching out like racers as they passed in dangerous proximity to the enemy ; there massed up at bay with excited mien and head erect, trotting about with splendid action as if daring the hunter to approach." i88 EASTERN ETHIOPIA xv Zebras are purely African beasts, and in British East Africa as common as hartebeests. They are among the first wild animals seen from the train after leaving Mombasa. It is almost unnecessary to write anything about these conspicuous quadrupeds, which combine some of the characters of horses and asses. The mane of a zebra, like that of an ass, is erect ; the Grunt's Zebra. Common in the Rift Valley, but it will disappear before the march of civilisation. upper part of " chestnuts " the tail is free from long hairs, an